Human Society In Ethics And Politics

HUMAN SOCIETY
IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

BY- BERTB.A'^D R.USSEE1.

T'he ImpOLct of Sctence on Socxety
Nexjt^ Hop^s F'or a CThangine^

^uthoTitv and the Individual
Pluman Knozvledi^ ' //y fsiope and limits

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I he T^rirn. ipfes of JVIathemalics
I n t rfidiiK t ion to Alatht matical J^hiUjsophy
lilt ^nalvsis of Almd
CJnr ICno’ik^ledc^e of the I' t It mal Jf^orld
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WOKIT^G AND J ONDON

PREFACE*

THE first nine , chapters of this book were written in 1945-6,
the rest in 1953, except Chapter II of Part II, which was the
lecture I gave in Stockholm on the occasion of reteiving the
Nobel Prize for Literature. I had originally intended to include
the discussion of ethics in niy book on “Human Knowledge,"
but I decided not to do so because I was uncertain as to the
sense in which ethics can be regarded as “k)iovvledge”.

This book has two purposes; first, to set foilh an undog-
niatic ethic; and second, to apply this ethic to various current
political problems. 'I'herc is nothing startlingly original in the
ethic developed in the first Part of this book, and I am not sure
that 1 should have thought it worth while to set it forth,
except for the fact that, when I make ethical judgments on
political (piestions, 1 am constantly told by critiis that I have
no right to do so, since I do f)ot believe in the objectivity of
ethical judgments. I do not think this criticism valid, but to
show' that it is not valid recpiircN certain developments which*
cannot bo altogether brief.

The second Part of this book does not attempt to be a
complete theory of poiitic’s. I have dealt with various parts of
the theory of politics in pre\ ioui books, and in this book I deal
only witli those parts tlr in addition to being closely related
to ethics, are of urgent practical importance in the present da}*.

I have hoped that, by setting on” actual problems in a large
impersonal framework, I may c'a i.sc them to be viewed with
less hc'at, less fanatici.sm, and a .smaller amoiuit of vvc'rrv and
fret than is easily jiossible when the\ are viewed only in a
contemporary context.

I hope also that this book, which is voncemed throughout
with human passions and their efiv f upon human destiny, may
hel^jk to dispel a misunderstanding not only of what I have
written, but of everything written by those with whom I am

7

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

in broad agreement. Critics are in the habit of making a certain
accusation against me which seems to imply tliat they approach
my writings with a preconception so strong tliat they are
unable to notice what, in fact, I say. I am told over and over
again that I over-estimate the part of reason in human affairs.
This may mean that I think eitlier that people are, or that they
ought to be, more rational than my critics believe them to be.
But I tliink there is a prior error on the part of my critics,
which is that they, not I, irrational!}^ over-estimate the part
which reason is capable of playing, and this comes I think from
the fact tliat they are in complete tonfusion as to what the
word “reason” means.

“Reason” has a perfectly clear and precise meaning. It
signifies the choice of the right means to an end that you wish
to achieve. It has nothing whatever to do wdth the choice of
ends. But opponents of reason do not realize this, and think
tliat advocates of rationality want reason to dictate ends as
well as means. They have no excuse for this view in the writings
of rationalists. There js a famous sentence: “Reason is and
ought only to be, the slave of the passions ” 'fliis sentence
does not come from the works of Rousseau or Dostoevsk} or
Sartre. It comes from David Hume. It expresses a v^i(*w to
which 1, like every man who attempts to be reasonable, fully
subscribe. When I am told, as I freciuentlv am, that I “almost
entirely discount the part placed b} the emotions in human
affairs,” I wonder what motive-force the critic supjioses me to
regard as dominant. Desires, emotions, passions (vou can
choose whichever word you will), are the only possible causes
of action. Reason is not a cause of a( tion but only a regulator.
If I wish to travel by plane to New York, reason tells me that
it is better to take a plane whicJi is going to New York tlian
one which is goibg to Constantinople. I suppose that lho.se
w'ho think me unduly rational, (onsider that I ought to become
so agitated at the airport as to jump into the first plane tlyjt I
see, and when it lands me in (Constantinople I ought to cur.se

8

PREFACE

the people among whom I find myself for being Turks and not
Amerieans. This would be a fine, full-blooded way of behaving,
and would, I suppose, meet with the commendation of my
critics.

One critic takes me to task because I say that only evil
passions prevent the realization of a better world, and goes on
triumphantly to ask, '‘arc all human emotions necessarily
evil?” In the very book that leads my critic to this objection, I
say that what the world needs is Christian love, or compassion.
This, surely, is an emotion, and, in saying that this is w'hat the
world needs, I am not suggesting reason as a driving fon'e. I
can onl}^ suppose tijat this emotion, because it is neither cruel
nor destructive, is not attractive to the aix)stles of unreason.

\Miy, tlien, is there this violent passion which causes people,
w'hcn they read me, to be unable to notice even the plainest
statement, and to go on comlortably thinking tliat I say the
exac t opposite of wliat I do say? There are several motives
wliich ina} lead people to hat(‘ reason. Vou may have incom-
patible desires and not wish to realize that they are incom-
patible. You may wish to spend more than your income and
yet remain solvcMit. And this may cause you to hate your
friends when the\ point out the cold facts of arithmetic. You
inaj^ if you are an old-fashioned schoolmaster, wisli to con-
.sider yourself full of universal benevolence, and at the same
time derive gieat pleasu j from caning boys. In order to
reconcile these two desires you have to j)crsuado yourself that
caning has a reforinatc^ry influeiux If a psychiatrist tells you
that it has no such inHir'iice on souie peculiarly irrilat'ng class
of young sinners, you will fly into a lage and acruse him of
being coldly intellcTtual. There is a splendid example of this
pattern in the furious diatribe of the great Di. Arnold of Rugby
against those wlio tliouglit ill of flogging.

There is another, more sinistei, motive lor uxiiig irra-
tionit^ty. If men arc sufficiently irrational, you may be able to
induce them to serve your interests under the impression that

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

they are serving their own. This case is very common in
politics. Most political leaders acquire their position by causing
large numbers of people to believe that these leaders are
actuated by altruistic desires. It is well understood that such a
belief is more readily accepted under the influence of excite-
ment. Brass bands, mob oratory, lynching, and war, are stages
in the development of the excitement. I suppose the advocates
of unreason think that there is a better chance of profitably
deceiving the populace if they keep it in a state of effervescence.
Perhaps it is my dislike of this sort of process which leads
people to say that I am unduly rational.

But I would put to these men a dilemma: since reason con-
sists in a just adaptation of means to ends, it can only be
opposed by those who think it a good thing that peojfie should
choose means which cannot realize their jmfiessed ends. I'his
implies cither that they should be deceived as to how to realize
their professed ends, or that their real ends should not be those
that they profess. The first is the case of a poj>ulace misled by
an eloquent fuehrer. The second is that of the schoolmaster
who enjoys torturing boys, but w^ishes to go on thinking him-
self a benevolent humanildriaii. I cannot feel that either of
these grounds for opposing reason is morally respectable.

There is another ground upon which some people oppose
what they imagine to be reason. They think that strong emo-
tions are desirable, and that no one who feels a strong emotion
will be reasonable about it. They seem to thijik that any
person who feels strongly must lose his head and behave in a
silly manner which they applaud because it shows him to be
passionate. They do not, liowever, think in this way when
self-deception would have consequences that they would dis-
like. No one, for example, holds that a general ought to hate
the enemy so paJ>sionately as to become hysterical and incapable
of rational planning. It is not, in fact, the case that strong
passions prevent a just estimate of means. There are popple,
like the Comte de Monte Cristo, who have burning passions

10

PREFACE

leading them straight to the right choice of means. Do not tell
me that that worthy man’s aims were irrational. There is no
such thing as an irrational aim except in the sense of one that
is impossible of realization. Nor are cold calculators always
conventionally wicked, l..incoIn calculated coldly in the Ameri-
can Civil War and was roundly abused by the Abolitionists who,
as apostles of passion, wished him to adopt measures that
looked vigorous but would not have led to emancipation.

I suppose the essence of the matter is this: that I do not
think it a good thing to be in tliat state of insane excitement in
which people do things tliat have consequences directly oppo-
site to what they intend, as, for example, when they get
themselves killed in running across a street because they could
not stop to notice the tratfic. Those who praise such behaviour
must either wish to prac'tise successful hypocrisy or be the
victims of some self-deception which they cannot bear to
surrender. I am not ashamed of thinking ill of both these
states of mind, and if it is for thinking ill of them that I am
accused of excessive rationality, I plead guilty. But if it is
supposed that I dislike strong emotion, or that I think any-
thing except emotion can be a cause of action, then I most
empliatically deny the charge. The world that I should wish to
see is one where emotions aie strong but not destructive, and
where, because they are acknowledged, they lead to no decep-
tion either of oneself or of others. Such a world would include
love and friendsliip and tlie pursuit (;f art and knowledge. I
cannot hope to satisfy tliose wlio want sometliing more tigerish.

11

CONTENTS

PUEFACE 7

Introduction 1 5

PAur one: ethics

I, Sources of Ethical Beliefs and Feelings il5

II. Moral Codes 38

III. Morality as a Means 44

IV. Good and Bad 5 1

V. Partial and General Goods 60

VI. Moral Obligation 72

VII. Sin 8.9

VIII. Ethical Controversy KK)

IX. h there Ethical Khoik ledge? l lo

X. Authority in Ethics 1 i.q

XI. Prodihtion and Di'-tribution l.'iO

XII. Superstitions Ethics 1,38

XIII. Ethical Sain tions 1 K5

PAIU IWO: Till tOM'J.ICl OI PASSIONS

I. From Ethics to Politics

II, Politically Important Desires 15,0

I I I. Forethought and Skill 1 75

Myth and Magic

IV.

188

HUM«AN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

I

V. Cokesion'and Rivalry page 199

VI. Sdentijic Technique and the Future i208

VII. Will Religious Faith Cure Our Troubles f 213

VIII. Conquest? 222

IX, Steps Towards a Stable Peace 228

X. Prologue or Epilogue? 235

INTRODUCTION

THE life of man may be viewed in many different ways. He
may be viewed as one species of mammal and considered in a
purely biological light. From this point of view his success has
been overwhelming. He can live in all climates and in every
part of the world where then^ is water. His numbers have
increased and arc increasing still faster. He ow^es his success to
certain things which distinguish him from other animals:
spcecli, fire, agriculture, writing, tools, and large-scale co-opera-
tion.

It is in the matter of co-operation tliat he fails of complete
success. Man, like other animals, is filled with impulses and
passions which, on the whole, ministered to survival while man
was emerging. But his intelligence has shown him that passions
are often self-defeating, and that his desires (‘ould be more
satisfied, and his happiness more complete, if certain of his
passions were gi\en less scope and others more. Man has not
viewed himself at most times and in most places as a species
competing with other species. lie has been interested, not in
man, but in men; and men have been sharply divided into
friends and enemies. At times this di\ision has been u.scful to
those who emerged victorious: for example, in the conflict
between wliite men and red Indians. But as intelligence and
invention increase the complexity of st»cial organization, there
is a continual growth in the benefits of co-operation, and a
continual diminution of the benefits of competition. Ethics and
moral codes are necessary to man because of the conflict
between intelligence and impulse. Given intelligence only, or
impulse only, there would be no place for ethics.

Men are passionate, headstrong, and rather mad. By their
madness they inflict upon themselves, and upon others, disasters
wind# may be of immense magnitude. But, although the life of
impulse is dangerous, it must be preserved if human existence

15

humPan society in ethics and politics

is not to lose its savour. Between the two poles of impulse and
control, an ethic by which men can live happily must find a
middle point. It is through tliis conflict in the inmost nature of
man that the need for ethics arises.

Man is more complex in his impulses and desires than any
other animal, and from this complexity his difficulties spring.
He is neither completely gregarious, like ants and bees, nor
completely solitary, like lions and tigers. He is a semi-gre-
garious animal. Some of his impulses and desires are social,
some are solitary. The social part of his nature appears in the
fact that solitary confinement is a very severe form of punish-
ment ; the other part appears in love of privacy and unwilKng-
ness to speak to strangers. Graham Wallas, in his excellent
book Human Nature in Politics^ points out that men who live in
a crowded area such as Ixmdon develop a defence mechanism
of social behaviour designed to protect them from an unwel-
come excess of human contacts. People sitting next to each
other in a bus or a suburban train usually do not speak *o each
other, but if something alarming occurs, such as an air raid or
even an unusually thick fog, the strangers at once begin to feel
each other to be friends and converse without restraint. This
sort of behaviour illustrates the oscillation between the private
and the social parts of human nature. It is because we are not
completely social that we have need of ethks to suggest pur-
poses, and of moral codes to inculcate rules of action. Ants, it
seems, have no such need: they beliave always as the interests
of their community dictate.

But man, even if he could bring himself to be as submissive
to public interest as the ant, would not feel complete satisfac-
tion, and would be aware that a part of his nature which seems
to him important was being starved. It camiot be said that the
solitary part of human nature is less to be valued than tlie
social part. In religious phraseology, the two appear separately
in the two ('ommandments of the (jospcls to love God r*nd to
love our neighbour. For those wlio no longer believe in the

K>

INTHODUCTION

God of traditional theology, a certain, change of phraseology
may be necessary, but not a fundamental change as to ethical
values. The mystic, the poet, the artist, and the scientific dis-
coverer are in their inmost being solitary. What they do may
be useful to others, and its usefulness may be an encouragement
to them, but, in the moments when they are most alive and most
completely fulfilling what they feel to be their function, they
are not thinking of the rest of mankind but are pursuing a vision.

We must therefore admit two distinct elements in human
excellence, one social, the other solitary. An ethic which takes
account only of the one, or only of the other, will be incom-
plete and unsatisfying.

The need of ethics in human affairs arises not only from
man’s incomplete gregariousne.ss or from his failure to live up
to an inner vision; it arises also from another difference between
man and other animals. I'he actions of human beings do not all
spring from direct impulse, but are capable of being controlled
and directed by conscious purpose. To some slight extent
higher animals possess this faculty. A dog will allow his master
to hurt him in pulling a thorn out of his foot. Kohler's apes did
various uninstinctive things in the endeavour to reach bananas.
Nevertheless, it remains true even with the higher animals that
most of their acts are inspired by direct impulse. This is not
true of civilized man. From tl . * moment when he gets out of bed
in spite of a passionate desire to remain lying down, to the
moment when he finds himself alone i i tlie evening, he has few
opportunities of acting on impulse ex.ept by finding fault with
underlings and choosing the least disagreeable of the foods
offered for his mid-day meal. In all other respects he is guided,
not by impulse, but by deliberate purpose. What he does, he
does, not because the act is pleasant, but because he hopes that
it will bring him )7ioney or someothe» u'ward.* It is because of
this power of acting with a view to a desired end that ethics
and jnoral rules are effective, since they suggest, on the one
hand, a distinction between good and bad purposes, and, on

B 17

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

the Other hand, a distinction between legitimate and illegiti-
mate means of achieving purposes. But it is easy in dealing
with civilized man to lay too much stress on conscious purpose
and too little on the importance of spontaneous impulse.^ The
moralist is tempted to ignore the claims of human nature, and,
if he does so, it is likely that human nature will ignore the
claims of the moralist.

Ethics, though primarily individual even when it deals with
duty to others, is faced with its most difficult problems when it
comes to consider social groups. Wisdom as regards the action
of social groups requires a scientific study of human nature in
society, if we are to be able to judge what is possible and what
impossible. The first thing is to be clear as to the important
motives governing the behaviour of individuals and groups. Of
these the most imperative are those concerned with survival,
such as food and shelter and clothing and reproduction. But,
when these are secure, other motives become immensely strong.
Of these, acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity, and love of pow^r are
the most important. Most of the political actions of groups and
their leaders can be traced to these four motives, togdher with
what is necessary for survival

Every human being, after the first few days of his life, is a
product of two factors: on the one hand, there is his congenital
endowment; and on the other hand, there is the effect of
environment, including education, lliere have been endless
controversies as to the relative importance of these* two factors.
Pre-Darwinian reformers, in the eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries, attributed almost everything to education;
but, since Darwin, there has been a tcndencT to lay stress on
heredity as opposed to environment. The controveisy, of
course, can be only as to the degree of importance of the two
factors. Everyone must admit that each plays its part. Without
attempting to reach any decision as to the matters in debate,

* For a fuller treatment of this inattor, see Chapter I of Principles of hsocial
Reconstviction {LonAon: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.).

18

INTRODUCTION

we may assert pretty confidently that the impulses and desires
which determine the behaviour of an adult depend to an enor-
nious extent uj)on his education and his opportunities. The
importance of this arises through the fact that some impulses,
when they exist in two human beings or in two groups of
human beings, are such as essentially involve strife, since the
satisfaction of the one is incompatible with the satisfaction of
tlie other; while there are other impulses and desires which are
such that the satisfaction of one individual or group is a help,
or at least not a hindrance, to the satisfaction of the other. The
samp distinction applies, though in a lesser degree, in an
individual life. I may desire to get drunk tonight and to have
my faculties at their very best tomorrow morning. These
desires gel in each other's way. Borrowing a term from Leib-
niz's account of possible worlds, we may call two desires or
impulses “compossible" when both can be satisfied, and ‘"con-
flicting" when the satisfaction of the one is incompatible with
that 01 the other. If two men are both candidates for the Presi-
dency of the United States, one of them must be disap])ointed.
But if two men both w ish to become rich, the one by growing
c'otton and the other by manufacturing cotton cloth, there is no
reason why both should not succeed It is obvious that a w'orld
in which the aims of different indi\iduals i)r groups are coin-
possible is likely to be haj niei than one in which they are
conflicting. It follows that it should be part of a wise social
system to encourage compossible purposes, and discourage
('onflicting ones, by means of education and social systems
designed to this cmd.

The central group of facts of which a political theory must
take account is concerned with the character of social groups.
There are various ways in which groups may differ. Among
these, the most important are: cause ot cohesion, jnirpose, size,
intensity of the control of the group over the individual, and
forpi of government. This leads to the question of power and
its concentration or diffusion, whic'h is perhaps the most

19

, HUMA«r SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

important in the whole theory of politics. The difficulty of the
question arises from the fact that there are technical reasons for
concentrating power, but that those who have power are almost
sure to abuse it. Democracy is an attempt to solve this problem,
but is not always a successful attempt. I have considered this
group of questions in my book Pozver: a new social analysis ^

A number of problems of great complexity arise from the
impact of new techniques upon a society whose organization
and habits of thought are adapted to an otder system.® There
have been two great revolutions in human history which came
about in this way. The first was the introduction of agriculture ;
the second, that of scientific industrialism. In each case the
technical advance was a cause of vast human misery. Agriculture
introduced serfdom, human sacrifice, the subjection of women,
and the despotic empires which succeeded each other from the
first Eg3»ptian dynasty to the fall of Rome. The evils resulting
from the intrusion of scientific technique are, it is to be feared,
only just beginning. The greatest of them is the intensification
of war, but there are many others. Exliaustion of natural
resources, destruction of individual initiative by governments,
control over men's minds by central organs of education and
propaganda, are some of the major evils which appear to be on
tlie increase as a result of the impact of science upon minds
suited by tradition to an earlier kind of world. Modern science
and technique have enhanced the powers of rulers, and have
made it possible, as never before, to create whole societies on
a plan conceived in some man’s head. This possibility has led
to an intoxication with love of system, and, in this intoxication,
the elementary claims of the individual are forgotten. To find a
way of doing justice to these claims is one of the major problems
of our time. I have considered this part of political theory in
Part III of The Scientific Outlook, and in Authority and the
Individual.

London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.
See my Impact of Sctence on Socie^

20

INTRODUCTION

Tlie world in which we find oursdves is one where great
hopes and appalling fears are equally justified by the possi-
bilities. The fears are very generally felt, and are tending to
produce a world of listless gloom. Tlie hopes, since they
involve imagination and courage, are less vivid in most men's
minds. It is only because they are not vivid that they seem
utopian. Only a kind of mental laziness stands in the way. If
this can be overcome, mankind has a new happiness within its
grasp.

21

OTsTK

CHAPTER r

Sources of Ethical JBeliefs
and Feelings

ETHICS differs from science in the fact that its fundamental
data are feelings and emotions, not percepts. This is to be
understood strictly; that is to say, the data are the feelings and
emotions themselves, not the fact that we have them. The fact
tliat w'c have them is a sv lentific' fact like another, and we become
aware of it by perception, in the usual scientific way. But an
ethical judgment docs not state a fact; it states, though often
in a disguised form, some hope or tear, some desire or aversion,
some love or hate. It should be enunciated in the optative or
imjierative mood, not in the indicatl\e. The Bible says “thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself", and a modern man,
oppressed with the spectacle of international discord, may say
“would that all men loved one another"; these are pure ethical
sentences, which clearly cannot be proved or disproved merely
by amassing facts.

That feelings are relevant to ethics is easily seen by con-
sidering the hypothesis of a purely maf ^rial universe, consisting
of matter without sentience. Such a u. i verse would be neither
good nor bad, and nothing in it would be right or wrong. When,
in Genesis, God “saw that it was good" before He had created
life, we must suppose that the goodness depended either upon
His emotions in contemplating His work, or upon the fitness of
tlie inanimate world as an environmei**^ ^'or scAtient beings. If
the sun were about to collide with another star, and the earth
were, about to be reduced to gas, we should judge the forth-
coming cataclysm to be bad if we considered the existence of the

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

liuman race good; but, a similar cataclysm in a region without
life would be merely interesting. Thus ethics is bound up with
life, not as a physical process to be studied by the biocliemist,
but as made up of happiness and sorrow, hope and fear, and the
other cognate pairs of opposites that make us prefer one sort of
world to another.

But w^hen the fundamental ethical importance of feeling and
desire has been admitted, it still remains a question whether
there is such a thing as ethical knozvledge, “Thou shall not kill'’
is imperative, but “murder is wicked” seems to be indicative,
and to state something true or false. “W’ould that all men were
happy” is optative, but “happiness is good” has the same
grammatical form as “Socrates is mortal”. Is this grammatical
form misleading, or is there trutli and falsehood in ethics as in
science? If I say that Nero w^as a bad man, am I giving informa-
tion, as I should be if I said that he was a Homan Emperor, or
would w'hat I say be mc^re accurately expressed by the words:
“Nero? Oh fie!”? This question is not an easy one, and I do
not think tliat any simple answ'er is possilile.

There is another closely related question, and that is as to
the subjectivity of ethical judgments. If I say that oysters are
good, and you say tliey are nasty, we botli understand that we
are merely expressing our personal tastes, and that there is
notliing to argue about. But when Nazis say that it is good to
torture Jews, and we say that it is bad, we do not feel as if we
were merel\' exjiressing a ilifi'erence of taste; we are even
willing to fight and die for our opinion, which we should not do
to enforce our view about oy.sters. Wliatever arguments ma}^ be
advanced to show that the two cases are analogous, most people
will remain convinced that there is a ditterence somewhere,
thougli it may be difficult to say exactly what it is. I think this
feeling, though hot decisive, deserves respect, and should make
us reluctant to accept at all readily tlie view that all ethical
judgments are wholly subjective.

It may be said that if hopes and desires are fundamental in

ao*

SOURCES OP ETHICAL BELIEFS AND FEELINGS

ethics, then everything in ethics must bo* subjective, since hopes
and desires are so. But this argument is less conclusive than it
sounds. The data of science are individual percepts, and these
are far more subjective than common sense supposes; neverthe-
less, upon this basis the imposing edifice of impersonal science
has been built up. This depends upon the fact that there are
certain respects in which the percepts of the majority agree, and
that the divergent percepts of the colour-blind and the victims
of hallucinations can be ignored. It may l)e that there is some
similar way of arriving at objectivity in ethics; if so, since it
must involve appeal to the majority, it will take us from
personal etliics into the sphere of politics, which is, in fact,
very difficult to separate fri>in ethics.

The separation of ethics from tlicology is more difficult than
the analogous separation in the case of science. It is true that
sciciice has only emancipated itself after a long struggle. Until
the latter half of the seventeenth century, it was commonly Iield
that a man who did not believe in witchcraft must be an atheist,
and there are still people who condemn evolution on theological
grounds, but very many theologians now agree that nothing
in science can shake the foundations of religious belief. In
ethics the situation is different. Man}' traditional ethical con-
cepts are diilicult to interpret, and many traditional ethical
beliefs are hard to justify, except on the assumption that there
is a Ciod or a World Spirit or at least an immanent cosmic
Purpose. I do not say that these interpi tations and justifications
are impossible without a theological oasis, but I do say that
without such a basis they lose persuasive force and the power
of psychological compulsion.

It has always been one of the favourite arguments of the
orthodox tliat without religion men would become wicked. The
nineteenth-centur} British freethinkers, nom Bentham to Henry
Sidgwick, vehemently repudiated this argument, and their
repufliation gained force from the fact that they were among
the most virtuous men that have ever existed. But in the

27

HUNfAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

modem world, which has been shocked by the excessevs of
totalitarians who professed themselves unbelievers, the virtues
of Victorian agnostics seem less conclusive, and may even be
attributed to imperfect emancipation from the Christian tradi-
tion. The whole question whether ethics, in any socially ade-
quate form, can be independent of theology, must therefore be
re-examined, with more awareness of the deep possibilities of
evil than was to be found among our grandfathers, who were
kept cozy by their comfortable belief in rational progress.

Ethical beliefs, throughout recorded history, have had two
very different sources, one political, the other concerned with
personal religious and moral convictions. In the Old Testa-
ment the two appear quite separately, one as the Law, the
other as the Prophets. In the middle ages there was the same
kind of distinction between the official morality inculcated by
the hierarchy and the personal holiness that was taught and
practised by the great mystics. In our own day the same
duality persists, Wlien Kropotkin, after the Russian Jtcvolu-
tion, was able to return from his long exile, it was not the
Russia of his dreams that he found being born. He had dreamed
of a loosely knit community of free and self-respecting indivi-
duals, but what w^as being created was a powerful centralized
State, in which the individual was regarded merely as a means.
This duality of personal and civic morality is one of which any
adequate ethical theory must take account. Without civic
morality communities perish; without personal morality their
survival has no value. Therefore civic and personal morality
are equally necessary to a good world.

In all known human communities, even the most primitive,
ethical beliefs and feelings exist. Some actions are praised,
others are blamed; some are rewarded, others are punished.
Some acts of individuals are thought to bring prosperity, not
only to the individuals, but to the community; others are
thought to bring disaster. The beliefs concerned are in part
defensible on rational grounds, but in primitive communities

SOURCES OF ETHICAL BELIEFS AND FEE^.INGS

there is a preponderance of purely superstitious beliefs, which
often inspire, at first, even those prohibitions which, later, are
found to be capable of a reasoned justification.

One of the chief sources of primitive morality is tabu. Cer-
tain objects, especially those belonging to the chief, are imbued
with mana, and if you touch them you will die. Certain things
are dedicated to a Spirit, and must only be used by the medicine
man. Some foods arc lawful, others unlawful. Some individuals,
until purified, are unclean; this applies especially to such as
have some taint of blood, not only those who have committed
homicide, but also women in childbirth and during menstrua-
tion (see Leviticus xv, 19 - 2 . 9 ). There are often elaborate
rules of exogamy, making a large proportion of the tribe tabu
to the opposite sex. All these tabus, if infringed, are liable to
bring disaster upon the guilty, and indeed upon the whole
community unless appropriate purificatory ceremonies are
performed.

There is no pretence of justice, as we understand it, in the
punishment following an act forbidden by a tabu, which is
rather to be conceived as analogous to death as the result of
touching a live wire. When David was tran.sporting the Ark on
a tart, it jolted over a rough threshing floor, and Uzzah, who
was in charge, thinking it would fall, stretched up his hand to
steady it. For this impiety, in ^pite of his laudable motive, he
was struck dead (11 Samuel, vi, 6-7). The same lack of
justice appears in the fact that not onh murder, but accidental
homicide, calls for ritual purification.

F'orms of morality based on tabu linger on into civilized
communities to a greater extent than some people realize.
Pythagoras forbade beans, and Empedocles thought it wicked
to munch laurel leaves. Hindus shudder at the thought of eating
beef; Mohammedans and orthodox Je*.^ regard the flesh of
the pig as unclean. St. Augustine, the missionary to Britain,
wrote.to Pope Gregory the Great to know whether married
people might come to church if they had had intercourse the

29

HUM«A.N SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

previous night, and the Pope ruled that they might only do so
after a ceremonial washing. There was a law in Connecticut —
I believe it is still fonnally unrepealed — making it illegal for a
man to kiss his wife on Sunday. In 19 1() a clergyman from
Scotland wrote a letter to the Press attributing our lack of
success against the Germans to the fact that the Government
had encouraged the planting of potatoes on Sundays. All these
opinions can only be justified on a basis of tabu.

One of the best examples of tabu is the prevalence of laws or
rules prohibiting various forms of endogam}'. Sometimes a
tribe is divided into a number of groups, and a man must take
his wife from a group other than his own. In the Greek Churrh,
godparents of the same child may not marry. In England, until
recently, a man might not marry his deceased wife’s sister.
Such prohibitions are impossible to justify on the ground that
the forbidden unions would do any harm; they are defended
s<dely on the ground of ancient tabu. But further, those forms
of incest which most of us still regard as not to be legally
sanctioned are viewed, by most peojde, with a horror wffich is
out of propt>rtion to tlie harm that they would do, and which
must be regarded as an effect of pre-rat lonal tabu. Defoe’s Moll
Flanders is far from exemplary, and commits manj'^ crimes
without a qualm; but when .she finds that she has inadvertently
married her brother she is appalled, and can no longer endure
him as a husband allhough they bad lived happily together for
3 ’ears. This is fiction, but it is certainly true to life.

I'abu has certain great advantages as a source of moral
behaviour. It is psychologically far more compelling than any
merely rational rules; compare, for instance, the shuddering
aversion from incest with the calm reprobation of such a crime
as forgery, which is not viewed supcrstitiously because savages
cannot commif it. Moreoser a tabu morality can be perfectly
precise and perfectly definite. True, it may prohibit com-
pletely harmless acts such as eating beans, but it probably also
prohibits genuinely harmful acts such as murder, and does so

SO

SOURCES OF ETHICAL BELIEFS AND FEELINGS

more successfully than any other ethical method open to
primitive communities. It is useful also in promoting govern-
mental stability.

There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
niat treason can but peep the thing it would.

Acts little of his will.

Since the assassination of a king usually leads to civil war, this
“divinity” must be considered a beneficial eftcct of the tabus
surrounding the Chief.

When the orthodox argue that rejection of theological
dogmas must lead to a decay of morals, the strongest con-
sideration on their side is the iisefidness of tabu. When men
cease to feel a superstitious reverence for ancient and venerable
precejits, they may not be content with marrying their deceased
wives' sisters and planting potatoes on Sundays; they may
advance to e\en more heinous sins, such as murder, treachery,
and treason. Tins hapjK'iied in classical (Ireece and in Renais-
sance Italy, both of which, in cons('(juence, suffered political
disaster. In each case men w'hose grandfathers hail been pious
and orderly citizens became anarchic criminals under the
influence of free thought. 1 do not wish to underestimate the
weight i^f sucli considerations, more particularly in the present
day, when dictatorships are largely an almost inevitable
reaction against the diffused anarchic tendencies of men w^ho
have thrown off tabu morality without acquiring an}^ other.

The arguments against reliance on tabu morality are, how-
ever, to my mind, considerably stronger than those in fas'our,
and as I am engaged in the attempt to expound a rational ethic
I must set forth these arguments in oriler to justify my purpose.

The first argument is tliat, in a modem educated and scien-
tific society, it is difficult to preserve respc'i't for what is merely
traditional except by a tight control over education designed
to destroy capacity for independent thought. If jou are brought
up as*a Protestant, you must be kept from noticing tliat Satur-
day, not Sunday, is the day on whicli it is wicked to plant

31

HUM*AN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

potatoes. If you are brpught up as a Catholic, you must remain
ignorant of the fact that, in spite of the indissolubility of mar-
riage, Dukes and Duchesses can have their marriages annulled
by the Church on evidence which would not be thought adequate
for an obscure couple. The necessary degree of stupidity is
socially harmful, and can only be secured by means of a rigidly
obscurantist regime.

The second argument is tliat, if moral education has been
confined to the inculcation of tabus, the man who throws over
one tabu is likely to'tlirow over all the rest. If you have been
taught that all the Ten Commandments arc equally binding,
and you then come to the conclusion that work on the sabbath
is not wicked, you may decide tliat murder also is permissible,
and tliat there is no reason why any one act slioiild be thought
worse than any other. The general moral collapse whic h often
follows a sudden irruption of free thought is attributable to the
absence of a rational basis for the traditional ethical code.
There was no such collapse among freethinkers in nineteenth-
century England, largely because they believed that utili-
tarianism afforded a non-theological ground for obedience to
those moral precepts which it recognized as valid, which wcrci
in fact all those that contributed to the welfare of the com-
munity.

The third argument i.s that, in every tabu morality that has
hitherto existed, there have been some precepts that were
positively harmful, sometimes in a high degree. Consider, for
example, the text: “Thou .shalt not suffer a witch to live” ,
(Exodus xxii, 18). As a result of this text, in Germany alone,
some 100,000 witches were put to death during the century
from l'h60 to 1550. Belief in witchcraft was peculiarly jirevalent
in Scotland, and was encouraged in England by James I. It was
to flatter him that “Macbeth” was written, and the witches
are part of the flattery. Sir Thomas Browne maintained that
those who deny witchcraft are a sort of atheists. It was not
Christian charity, but the spread of the scientific outlook, that.

32

SOURCES OF ETHICAL BELIEFS AND FEELINGS

from about the time of Newton, put aij end to the burning of
harmless women for imaginary crimes. The tabu elements in
conventionalijmorality are less fierce in our day than they were
300 years ago, but they are still in part obstacles to humane
feeling and practice, for example in the opposition to birth
control and euthanasia.

As men begin to grow civilized, they cease to be satisfied
with mere tabus, and substitute divine commands and prohibi-
tions. The Decalogue begins: “God spake these words and
said’’. Throughout the Books of the I.,aw it is the Lord who
speaks. To do what Qod forbids is wicked, and will also be
punished; it would still be wicked even if it were not punished.
Thus the essence of morality becomes obedience. The funda-
mental obedience is to the will of God, but tliere are many
derivative forms which owe their sanction to the fact that social
inequalities have been divinely instituted. Subjects must obey
the king, slaves their master, wives their husbands, and children
their parents. The king owes obedience only to God, but if he
fails in this he or his people will be punished. When David
took a census, the Lord, who disliked statistics, sent a plague,
of which many thousands of the children of Israel died ( 1 Chron.
xxi). This .shows how important it was for everybody that the
king should be virtuous. The power of priests depended partly
upon the fact that they could to some extent keep the king
from sin, at any rate from the grosser sins such as worship of
false gods.

Obedience as the fundamental precept of ethics works fairly
well in a stable community where no one questions the estab-
lished religion and the government is tolerable. But at various
times these conditions have failed. In the opinion of the Prophets
they failed when kings were idolaters; in the opinion of the early
Church they failed when rulers were pagan or Arian. They
failed on a large scale at the Reformation, when no duty of
allegiance was acknowledged by Protestants to Catliolic
sovereigns oi by Catholics to Protestant sovereigns. But

c 33

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

Protestants were facecl with greater difficulties than those
that beset Catholics, for Catholics still had the Church, whose
ethical teaching was infallible, whereas Protestants had no
official source of moral precepts in countries where the govern-
ment opposed them. There was, of course, the Bible, but on
some subjects the Bible was silent and on others it spoke with
a divided voice. Was it lawful to lend money at interest? No
answer was to be found in the Scriptures. Should a childless
widow marry her deceased husband's brother? Leviticus says
no, Deuteronomj" says yes (Ixjv. xx, 21; Dent, xxv, 5).

Protestants were tluis led to revive an opinion already to be
found in the Prophets and the New Testament, to the effect
that God instructs each man's conscience as to what is right
and what is wrong. There is therefore no need of an external
ethical authority; nay, more, it is sin to obey such an authority
when its behests go against the individual conscience. No
precept enjoining obedience to an earthly authority is absolute,
or can be binding except in so far as conscience approves it.
This doctrine has had a profound effect in transforming etliics
and politics, even among those who by no means accept it. It
has afforded a justification for religious toleration, revolution
against bad governments, refusal of social inferiors to submit
to their ‘'betters", equality of women, and the decay of parental
authority. But it has failed disastrously to supply a new moral
basis for social coherence in place of the old basis whicli it has
destroyed. Conscience, pir se, is an anarchic force upon which
no system of government can be built.

There has been from the first a quite different source of
ethical feeling and etliical precept, namely give-and-take, or
social compromise, lliis is not dependent, like the kinds of
morality that w^e have bec'n considering hitlierto, either upon
superstition or upon religion; it arises, broadly speaking, from
the desire for a quiet life. When I want potatoes, I might go
by night and dig up those of my neighbour, but he might
retaliate by stealing the fruit off my apple trees. Each of us

34

SOURCES OF ETHICAL BELIEFS AND FECLINGS

would then have to keep somebody oi\ the watch all night to
guard against such depredations. This would be inconvenient
and tiresome; in the end, we should find it less trouble to
respect each other’s property — always supposing that neither of
us was dying of starvation. A morality of this sort, though it
may in early stages be helped by tabus or religious sanctions,
can survive their decay, since, at least in intention, it offers
advantages to every one. With the progress of civilization, it
has come to play a larger and larger part in legislation, govern-
ment, and private morality, and yet it has never succeeded in
inspiring the intense emotions of horror or veneration that are
connected with religion or tabu.

Man is a gregarious animal, not, like the ants and bees, by
instinct, but in the main from a more or less obscure sense of
collective self-interest. The largest social unif that has a firm
instinctive basis is the family, and the family has begun to be
undermined by the State since the State has come to consider
it a duty to preser\'e the lives of infants neglected by their
parents. Ants and bees, one must suppose, act on impulse in
doing what is for the good of the nest or the hive, and never
reflect that they might better themselves as individuals by
anti-social behaviour. But human beings are not so fortunate.
To cause their actions to be in accordance with the public
interest, vast forces of law, of religion, and of education in
enlightened self-interest, have had to be called into play, and
their success has been very limited. It may be presumed that
the earliest communities were enlarged families, but the main
source of all further social cohesion has been war. In war a
large community inav be expected to defeat a small one, and
therefore any method of generating social cohesion in a large
group is biologically advantageous.

In so far as war has been the motive force teriding to increase
social cohesion, morality has had to consist of two very different
parts, duties towards members of one's own herd, and duties
having reference to individuals or groups outside the herd.

35

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

Religions aiming at universality, such as Buddhism and Chris-
tianity, have sought to obliterate this distinction, and to treat
all mankind as one single herB. This point of view began, in the
West, with the Stoics, as a consequence of Alexander's con-
quests. But hitherto, in spite of all that religion could do, it has
remained an aspiration of a few philosophers and saints.

It is only morality within the herd that I wish to consider at
present, and this only in so far as its purpose is to facilitate
social co-operation. It is obvious that what is most imperative
is some method, other than individual force, by which it can be
decided what is to belong to whom. The two institutions by
which most civilized communities have set to work to solve
this problem are law and property, and the moral principle sup-
posed to regulate these institutions has been justice, or what
public opinion could accept as such.

Law consists essentially of a set of rules governing the use of
force by the State, together with a prohibition of the use of
force by private individuals or groups except in certain specified
circumstances, such as self-defence. In the absence of law there
is anarchy, involving the use of naked force by muscular indi-
viduals, and, although laws may be bad, they can seldom be so
bad as to be worse than anarchy. A sentiment of respect for
law is therefore a rational one.

Private property i.s a device by means of which submission
to law is rendered less unpalatable than it would otherwise be.
Originally, when primitive communism broke down, a man
had a right to the produce of his own labour and to the dwelling
and plot of land where he had always lived ; moreover it appeared
natural and right that he should be permitted to leave his pro-
perty to his children. In a nomadic community his property
would consist mainly of flocks and herds.

Where law and property exist, "theft” becomes a definable
concept, and can be included in the Decalogue as one among the
ten worst sins.

Laws are held to be good when they are "just”, but "justice”

36

SOURCES OF ETHICAL BELIEFS ANP FEELINGS

is a concept which it is very difllicult to make precise. Plato's
Republic professes to be an attempt to define it, but it cannot be
said that the attempt is very successful. Under the influence of
democratic sentiment modem men tend to identify justice with
equality, but even now there are limits to this view. If it were
proposed that the Queen should have the same income as a
bricklayer, most people, including bricklayers, would think the
proposal shocking. Until recent times, this feeling in favour of
inequality had a much wider scope. I think that in fact "justice”
must be defined as "what most people think just”, or rather, to
avoid the vicious circle, "that system which gives the least
commonly recognized ground of complaint”. To give concrete
content to this definition, we must take account of the traditions
and sentiments of the community to which it is to be applied.
What remains the same for every community is that the “just”
system "llfcthe one that causes the smallest amount of discontent.

It is clear that etliics considered as a matter of give-and-take
is scarcely distinguishable from politics. In this it differs from
the more personal ethic which consists in obedience to the will
of God or submission to the voice of conscience. One of the
problems that an ethical theory must consider is the relation of
these two kinds of moral system, and the delimitation of their
respective spheres. Consider the kind of sentiment that makes
an artist prefer to do good woik rather than potboilers; this
must be allowed an etliical value although it has nothing to do
with justice. For such reasons, I do not think that ethics can
be wholly social. Each of the sources of ethical feeling that we
have been considering, however crude in its beginnings, is
capable of development into forms that can influence highly
civilized men. If we ignore any one of them, the resulting ethic
will be partial and inadequate.

37

Chapter ii

Moral Codes

IN every community, even the crew of a pirate ship, there are
acts that are enjoined and acts that are forbidden, acts that are
applauded and acts that are reprobated. A pirate must show
courage in attack and justice in die distribution of the spoils; if
he fails in these respects, he is not a “good" pirate. When a
man belongs to a larger community, the scope of his duties
and possible sins becomes greater, and the considerations
involved become more complex, but there is still a code to
which he must conform on pain of public obloquy. Most acts, it
is true, are considered morally indifferent, provided a man is
not a slave or in a semi-servile condition. A man of independent
means may get up when he likes and go to bed when he fikes ;
he may eat and drink whatever he chooses, provided he avoids
excess; he may marry the lady of his choice if she is willing.
But he must perform his military duty when called upon by the
State to do so, and he must abstain from crime, as well as from
kinds of behaviour that make a man unpopular. Men without
independent means have much less freedom.

Moral codes have differed in different times and places to an
almost incredible extent. The Aztecs considered it their painful
duty to eat the flesh of enemies on ceremonial occasions ; it was
held that if they neglected to perform this service to the State
the light of the sun would go out. The head-hunters of Borneo,
before the Dutch government deprived them of the right of
self-determination, could not marry until they brought a dowry
of a certain number of heads ; any young man who failed incurred
the contempt which, in America, is bestowed upon a “sissy".
Confucius laid it down that a man whose parents are living is

38

MORAL CODES

guilty of a lack of filial piety if he refuses a lucrative govern-
ment post, since the salary and perquisites should be devoted to
making his father and mother comfortable in their old age.
Hammurabi decreed that if the daughter of a gentleman dies as
a result of being struck when pregnant, tlic daughter of the
striker should be killed. The Jewish law laid it down tliat a
woman taken in adultery should be stoned to death.

In view of this diversity of moral codes, we cannot say that
acts of one kind are right or acts of another kind wrong, unless
we have first found a way of deciding that some codes are
better than others. The natural impulse of every untravelled
person is to settle this question very simply: the code of his own
community is the right one, and other codes, where they differ
from his, are to be condemned. It is especially easy to maintain
this position when one’s own code is supposed to have a super-
natural origin. This belief enabled the missionaries to hold that
in Ceylon ‘‘only man is vile” and not to notice the “vileness” of
British cotton manufacturers who grew rich on child labour and
supported missions in the hope that “natives” would adopt
cotton clothing. But when a number of divergent codes all
claim an equally august origin, the philosopher can hardly
accept any one unless it has some argument in its favour which
the others lac‘k.

It might be maintained that a man should obey the moral
code of his own community whatever it may be. I should be
inclined to concede that he cannot be blamed for doing so, but
I think he should often be praised for rot doing so. The practice
of cannibalism was once almost universal, and in most cases it
was connected with religion. It cannot be supposed that it died
out of itself; there must have been moral pioneers who main-
tained that it was an evil practice. We read in the Bible that
Samuel thought it wicked not to slaughter the cattle of con-
quered enemies, and that Saul, perhaps not from the noblest
motives, opposed this view. Those who first advocated religious
toleration were thought wicked, and so were the early opponents

39

HUMyiN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

of slavery. The Gospek tell how Christ opposed the stricter
forms of the Sabbath tabu. It cannot, in view of such instances,
be denied that some actions which we all think highly laudable
consist in criticizing or infringing the moral code of one’s own
community. Of course this only applies to past ages or to
foreigners; nothing of the sort could occur among ourselves,
since our moral code is perfect.

"Right” and "wrong” are not on a level in the general
estimation; "wrong” is more primitive, alid remains the more
emphatic conception. In order to be a "good” man it is only
necessary to abstain from sin; nothing in the way of positive
action is necessary. This, however, is not wholly the case even
in the most negative view; you must, for instance, save a child
from drowning if you can do so without too great risk. But
this is not the sort of thing upon which most conventional
moralists insist. Nine of the Ten Commandments are negative.
If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, forni-
cation, perjury, bla.sphemy, and dLsrespoct towards your parents,
your Church, and your King, you are conventionally held to
de.sers'e moral admiration even if you have never done a single
kind or generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion
of virtue is an outcome of tabu morality, and has done untold
harm.

Traditional morality is too much concerned with the avoid-
ance of "sin” and w'ith the ritual of purification when "sin” has
occurred. This point of view, though prevalent in Christian
ethics, antedates Christianity; it existed among the Orphics,
and an account of it is to be found at the beginning of Plato's
Republic. "Sin”, as it appears in the teaching of the Church,
consists in acts of certain specified kinds, some socially harm-
ful, some neutral, some positively useful (e.g. euthanasia under
proper safeguards). Sins incur Divine punishment unless there
is sincere penitence ; if there is, they can be forgiven, even if it
is impossible to undo any harm they may have caused. The
sense of sin, and the fear of falling into sin, produce, where

40

MORAL CODES

they are strong, an introspective and self-centred frame of
mind, which interferes with spontaneous affection and breadth
of outlook, and is apt to generate a timorous and somewhat
disagreeable kind of humility. It is not by such a state of mind
that the best lives are inspired.

“Right”, as opposed to “wrong”, is originally a conception
connected with power, and having to do with the initiative of
those who are not bound to obedience. Kings should “do right
in the sight of the lA)rd”. There is something of the same kind
of positive duty in the ca.se of every kind of office or profession,
and indeed of every position that gives power. Soldiers must
fight, firemen must risk their lives in saving people from
burning houses, lifeboatmen must put to sea in a storm, doctors
must risk infection in an epidemic, fathers must do everything
lawful to provide food for their children.

In this way each profession comes to have its own ethical
code, in part different from that of ordinary citizens, and in the
main more positive. Doctors are bound by the Hippocratic
oath, soldiers by the laws of military discipline, priests by a
number of rules from which other men are exempt. Kings must
marry as the interests of the State direct, and not according to
the promptings of their own inclinations. The positive duties
belonging to each profession are in part prescribed by law, in
part enforced by the opinion ^'f the profession or of the general
public.

It is possible for two contradictory f'thical codes to be simul-
taneously accepted by the same community. ITie most remark-
able example of this is the contrast between Christian morality,
as taught by the Church, and the code of honour formulated in
the age of chivalry and by no means extinct in our own day.
The Church condemned homicide, except in war or by due
process of law, but honour demanded that a gentleman should
at all times be ready to fight a duel to avenge an insult. The
Church condemns suicide, but a German naval commander is
expected to commit suicide if he loses his ship. The Church

41

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

condemns adultery, but the code of honour, while not positively
commanding it, nevertheless respected a man more when he
had many amatory conquests to his credit, especially if the
ladies concerned were high-born, and still more if he had slain
their husbands in fair fight.

The code of honour is, of course, only binding upon "gentle-
men", and in part only in their dealings with other "gentle-
men", But where it is applicable it is utterly imperative, and is
unhesitatingly obeyed at all costs. It is set forth in all its
glorious absurdity in Corneille's "Cid". The father of the
Cid has been insulted by the father of the Cid's lady, but is too
old to fight himself; therefore honour demands that the Cid
shall fight, though it means disaster to his love. After a soliloquy
in the grand manner, he makes his decision:

Aliens, iiion bras, sauvons dii moins Thonneur,

Puisqu' apres tout il saut perdre Cliiincne.

The same code, now degenerate and laughable, appears in
Tom Moore's first dealings with Byron. Moore began by
challenging Byron to a duel, but before the matter came to a
head he wrote again, saying he had remembered that he had a
wife and children, whom his death would render destitute, and
suggesting that they should make friends rather than fight.
Byron, now quite secure, and afraid, as always, of being thought
no gentleman, was very slow^ to accept Moore's apologies, and
gave himself the appearance of a swashbuckling fire-eater. But
in th(* end it was happily agreed that Moore should write his
life instead of causing his death.

Although its manifestations were often absurd and some-
times tragic, belief in the importance of personal honour had
important merits, and its decay is far from being an unmixed
gain. It involved courage and truthfulness, unwillingness to
betray a trust, and chivalry towards those who were weak
without being social inferiors. If you wake up in the night and
find that your house is on fire, it is clearly your duty, if you can,

42

MOKAL CODES

to wake sleepers before saving yourself} this is an obligation of
honour. You will not be thought well of if you leave others to
their fate on the ground that you are an important citizen while
they are people of no account, tlmugh there are circumstances
in which such a defence would have a kind of validity — for
instance, if you were Winston Cliurchill in 1940. Another
thing that honour forbids is abjectness in submission to unjust
authority, for example in currying favour with an invading
enemy. To come to smaller matters, betraying secrets and
reading other people’s letters are fel^ to be dishonourable
actions. When the conception of honour is freed from aristo-
cratic insolence and from proneness to violence, something
remains which helps to preserve personal integrity and to
promote mutual trust in social relations. I should not wish this
legacy of the age of chivalry to be wholly lost to tlie world.

43

CHAPTER III

Morality as a Means

WE have considered, so far, two divergent views as to what
constitutes morality. On one view it coniiists of conformity to
the ethical code of the community to which we happen to
belong ; on the other it consists of obedience to the will of God
or to the individual conscience. I have confined myself to
expounding these views, without seriously examining what
arguments can be adduced for or against them. Each has
defects, which we must now consider.

Moral codes, as we have seen, differ in different societies;
Bornean head-hunters and Quakers, for example, differ widely
as to the sort of conduct that they advise. We may saj^: the
virtuous man obeys the code of his own community. Or we may
say: the virtuous man obeys the code of my community.
Broadly speaking, in dealings with savages, administrators
adopt the former view and missionaries tlie latter. But in some
respects the administrators agree with the missionaries; for
example, even the most tolerant of them try to extirpate
cannibalism.

We all, in practice, hold that one moral code may be prefer-
able to another. Throughout Western civilization there are
very few who would approve the ancient Semitic custom of
sacrificing children to Moloch, the Roman father's power of
life and death over his children, the former Chinese practice of
binding women's feet, or the Japanese rule that a wife must
sleep on a wooden pillow while her husband sleeps on a soft one.
I am not, at the moment, arguing that we are right in disap*
proving of these practices; it is not difficult to imagine eloquent
defences of them by those to whom they seemed right. What I

44

MORALITY AS A MEAKS

am arguing is something as to which they and we would be in
agreement, namely that one moral code may be better or worse
than another. When this is admitted, it follows that there is
something in ethics that is superior to moral codes, and that by
means of this something they are to be judged. Ethics, there-
fore, is not exhausted in the single precept: “Do what your
community approves, and avoid what it disapproves”.

It remains possible, however, to say: “virtue, everywhere
and always, consists in obedience to the moral code of my
community". This is the view adopted by the Church. The early
Christians considered it wicked of the pagans to practise
idolatry, although the pagan moral code enjoined it. Modem
missionaries are shocked by nudity, even where it has been the
custom from time immemorial. By the help of scientific weapons
of war this view has been caused to prevail throughout Africa
and the South Sea islands. Only the Japanese found means of
resisting this argument: when, in the sixteenth century, the
Spaniards sent them missionaries and fire-arms, they at first
admitted both, but when they had learnt to make fire-arms they
decided to tolerate no more missionaries.

Missionaries may argue that the superiority of the Christian
code is known by revelation. The philosopher, however, must
observe that other religions make the same claim. An appeal to
theology is against the rules m philosophy, which must follow
the practice of Thomas Aquinas, who, in tlie first three of the
four Books of his Summa contra Gentiles, deliberately abstains
from every appeal to revelation. If, then, we are to prefer our
own code of morals, we must, as philosophers, find reasons
which should make a universal appeal, and not only an appeal
to those who share our tlieology.

An ethic based upon the individual conscience has inadequa-
cies very similar to those of an ethic based on moral codes.
Individual consciences differ: conscientious objectors think it
wrong to fight, thugs think it wrong to abstain from fighting;
the Manicheans thought it wicked to eat any animal food

45

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

except fish, but many $ects have considered this exception an
abomination. The Dukhobors refused military service, but held
it proper to dance naked all together round a camp fire ; being
persecuted for the former tenet in Russia, they emigrated to
Canada, where they were persecuted for the latter. The Mor-
mons had a divine revelation in favour of polygamy, but under
pressure from the United States government they discovered
that the revelation was not binding. Some moralists, including
many eminent Jesuits, have considered tyrannicide a duty;
others have taught that it is always a sin. Clearly conscience
does not always declare the will of God, for if it did such
diversities would be impossible.

Just as we all hold that some ethical codes are better than
others, so we must hold that some consciences are better than
others, unless we are so ignorant as not to be aware that con-
sciences differ. There must therefore be some criterion other
than conscience by which to decide what is to be considered
desirable conduct, and this criterion cannot be derived from
rules of conduct such as "do not kill" or "do not steal”, because,
as we have seen, there is no general agreement as to such rules.

Without going outside the limits of our own age and nation
it is easy to show that exceptions to received rules would be
generally admitted on reflection. Take, first, the prohibition of
murder. If "murder” is defined as "unjustifiable homicide” it
follows tautologically that murder is wrong. But this merely
transfers the argument to the inquiry as to when homicide is
unjustifiable. Most people think that homicide is justified in
war and as a result of condemnation by due process of law. It is
very generally held that you have a right to kill a man in self-
defence if there is no other way of preserving your life. It
would seem to follow that you must have a right to kill a man
in defence of your wife or your children. But how about saving
your wife from a fate worse than death? And how about other
people's children when they are in danger? Or suppose you
had come upon Guy Fawkes ju.st about to fire the fatal train,

46

MORALITY AS A MEANS

and the only way of stopping him had bpen to shoot him on the
spot? Most people would consider you justified in shooting
him. But suppose, wlien you saw him making a light, you were
uncertain whether he meant to blow up King, lairds and Com-
mons or only to smoke a pipe, would you be justified in taking
the blacker view of his intentions?

Or take the prohibition of incest. Suppose atomic bombs had
reduced the population of the world to one brother and sister;
should they let the human race die out? 1 do not know the
answer, but I do not think it ran be in the alfinnative merely
on tlic ground that incest is wicked.

To such casuistical j)roblems there is no end, and clearly
the only way in which an answer is theoretically possible is to
di.scover some end which conduct should serve, and to judge
conduct to be “right” when it is calculated to promote this end.

We are thus led to “good” and “bad”, rather than “right”
and “wrong”, as the fundamental concepts of ethics. In this
view "right” conduct is conduct which is a means to “good”.
This view is associated with the utilitarians, who maintained
that “right” conduct is “useful” conduct. They went on to
assert that conduct is “useful” when it promotes tlie general
happiness or pleasure, but for the moment I am not considering
this further proposition ; I am considering only the proposition
that there is some purpose in terms of w’hich “right” conduct
is to be defined.

This point of view is obscurely prc'ent tliroughout the de-
velopment of ethical rulc.s, even when it is not explicitly
recognized. Tabus must not be infringed because the results,
if they are, will be unpleasant. In the Sermon on the Mount,
the Beatitudes are enforced by utilitarian arguments; "blessed
are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” does not present
meekness as an end in itself. It is genet ally recognized that a
good ruler will aim at the happiness of his people. And so on.

Even when ethics is conceived as consisting in obedience to
moral rules known by revelation, it is still customary to defend

47

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

these rules by utilitarian arguments. If the only basis
morality is God’s decrees, it follows that they might just as
well have been the opposite of what tliey are; no reason except
caprice could have prevented the omission of all the “nots”
from the Decalogue. This view has been rightly condemned
by the theologians. It is much easier to believe that God has
prohibited murder than that He has enjoined it; sects like the
Thugs, which consider murder a religious duty, remain very
small. The real (though often unconscious) reason for this
feeling is that a community addicted to murder is uncomfort-
able, and cannot realize various ends that most of us think
good. Theologians have always taught that God's decrees are
good, and that this is not a mere tautology; it follows that
goodness is logically independent of God's decrees. God could
not have enjoined murder, since such a decree would have
had evil consequences.

It is interesting to observe that Thomas Aquinas defends
the received rules of Christian morality by utilitarian considera-
tions. For example: if marriage were not permanent, fathers
would have no part in education; but fatliers are useful, both
because they are more rational than mothers, and because they
have the physical strength needed for punishment; therefore
marriage should be permanent. Or again: brothers and sisters
ought not to marry, because, if the affection of brother and
sister were joined to that of husband and wife, the total would
be so great as to lead to an excess of passion. 1 am not examining
the validity of these arguments; I am merely pointing out that
they involve regarding virtue as a means to something other
than itself, sshich may be called "the good”.

*1110 only moralists who have made a serious attempt to be
consistent in regarding virtue as an end in itself are the Stoics and
Kant. But even they .showed in various ways that they had another
ethic in addition to the one in which they explicitly believed.

The Emperor Marcus Aurelius was an orthodox Stoic, and
in his philosophic capacity he believed virtue to be the only

4-8

MORALITY AS A MEANS

thing that was good on its own accou)\t; moreover he taugfu;
in common with his whole school, that the best opportunities
for \drtue occur in adversity. He himself had no occasion to
tremble before a tyrant, but he followed Epictetus, who, as a
slave, had been intimately subject to unjust power, and even
(it is said) crippled as a result of cruel punishment. Epictetus
taught that the virtuous will is tlie sole good, and that tyrants
cannot compel you to be wicked; you have therefore no reason
to fear them, but quite the contrary, since they confer the boon
of occasions for courage and fortitude. Marcus Aurelius,
therefore, when he had the chance, should have been a tyrant,
and should have afforded his subjects the benefit of the sweet
uses of adversity. Instead of this he took trouble over the
supply of grain to Rome, and spent weary years fighting tlie
barbarians on the Northern frontiers. Although, as a philoso-
pher, he considered happiness a thing of no account, as an
Emperor he toiled unceasingly to bring happiness to his
Empire. Logically, such conduct was indefensible, though
humanely it was liighly laudable

Kant was never tired of pouring scorn on the view that the
good consists of pleasure, or of anything else except virtue.
And virtue consists in acting as the moral law enjoins, because
that is what the moral law enjoins. A right action done from
any other motive cannot tour ‘ as virtuous. If you are kind to
your brother because you are fond of him, you have no merit;
but if you can hardly stand him and ire nevertheless kind to
him because tlie moral law says you shviuld be, then you are the
sort of person that Kant thinks you ought to be. But in spite of
the total worthlessness of pleasure Kant thinks it unjust that
the good should suffer, and on this ground alone holds that
there is a future life in which they enjoy eternal bliss. If he
really believed what he thinks he believes, * he would not
regard heaven as a place where the good are happy, but as a
place where they have never-ending opportunities of doing kind-
nesses to peojde whom they dislike.

D 49

humIan society in ethics and politics

Most of the cases io which there seems to be a belief that
certain actions are right and others wrong independently of
their consequences are traceable to the effects of tabus of whidi
the sanctions have been forgotten or have come to seem in-
credible, Arguments against birth control are sometimes
derived from the fate of Onan. If a like fate normally befell
those who imitate his behaviour — which no doubt was at one
time believed to^be the case — that would afford an unanswer-
able utilitarian argument. But the horror inspired by a tabu
action which is thought to bring punishment often survives
belief in the punislinient, and thus gives rise to a rule which
can no longer be defended on utilitarian groimds. Children
living near a power wire will be taught not to touch it, and
will still fear to do so if the wire comes to be disused. This is
analogous to the case of tabus that once had an apparently
rational basis in superstitious beliefs that are now extinct. But
sucli tabus, in general, tend to become gradually inoperative.

I conclude that we shall come nearer to an ethic wlj|ch can
command a large measure of general agreement if we take
"good” and "bad” as our fundamental concepts than if we take
"right” and "wrong”. That ks to say, we shall hold that certain
things are "good” and certain others "bad”; that both these
are matters of degree, for instance a severe pain is worse than
a slight one; that "right” conduct is that which, on the evi-
dence, is likely to produce the greatest balance of good over
evil or the smallest balance of evil over good, a good and an
evil being considered equal when a man is indifferent as to
whether he experiences both or neither; and that the sura-total
of moral obligation is contained in the precept that a man ought
to do right in the above sense.

If this view is accepted, the next step must be to investigate
what can be meant by "good” and "bad”.

60

CHAPTER IV

Good and Bad

"good” and "bad”, "better” and "worse”, are terms which
may or may not have a verbal definition, but in any case first
come to be understood ostensively. Let us then begin with an
attempt to indicate their meaning, leaving the question of
verbal definition to a later stage. A thing is "good”, as I wish
to use the term, if it is valued for its own sake, and not only
for its effects. We take nasty medicines because we hope they
will have desirable effects, but a gouty connoisseur drinks old
wine for its own sake, in spite of possible disagreeable effects.
The medicine is useful but not good, the wine is good but not
useful. When we have to clioose whether a certain state of
affairs is to exist or not, we have of course to take account of its
effects. But the state of affairs, as well as each of its effects, has
an intrinsic quality which inclines us to choose it or not to
choose it, as the case may be. It is this intrinsic quality that I
call "good” when we incline to choose it and "bad” when we
incline to reject it.

Utilitarians maintain that pleasure is the only good and pain
the only evil. This may be questioned, but in any case most
pleasure is "good” and most pain is "bad”, in the sense in
which I wish to use these words. A little consideration of
pleasure and pain will help to bring out the difference between
ends and means, which is important in this discussion.

We are in the habit of thinking some pleasures good and
some bad; we think the pleasure derived from an act of benevo-
lence is good, while that derived from cruelty is bad. But in
so judging we are confusing ends and means. The pleasure of
cruelty is bad as a means, because it involves pain fur the

51

humAn society in ethics and politics

victim, but if it could ^xist without this correlation perhaps it
would not be evil. We condemn the pleasure of the drunkard
because of his wife and family and the headache next morning,
but given an intoxicant which was cheap and caused no hang-
over, the pleasure would be all to the good. Morality is so
much concerned with means that it seems almost immoral to
consider anything solely in relation to its intrinsic worth. But
obviously nothing has any value as a means unless that to
which it is a means has value on its own aci ount. It follows that
intrinsic value is logically prior to value as means.

This question of ends and means is of great ethical impor-
tance. The difference between a civilized man and a savage,
between an adult and a child, between a man and an animal,
consists largely in a difference as to the weight attached to
ends and means in conduct. A civilized man insures his life, a
savage does not ; an adult brushes his teeth to prevent decay, a
child does not except under compulsion; men labour in the
fields to provide food for the winter, animals do not. Fore-
thought, which involves doing unpleasant things now for the
sake of pleasant things in the future, is one of the most essential
marks of mental development. Since forethought is difficult
and requires control of impulse, moralists stress its necessity,
and lay more emphasis on the virtue of present sacrifice than
on the pleasantness of the subsequent reward. You must do
right because it is right, and not bet'ause it is the way to get to
heaven. You must save because all sensible people do, and not
because you will ultimately secure an income that will enable
you to enjoy life. And so on.

But it is easy to carry this attitude of mind too far. It is
pathetic to see an elderly rich business man, who from work
and worry in youth has become dyspeptic, so that he can eat
only dry toast and drink only water while his careless guests
feast : the joys of wealth, which he had anticipated throughout
long laborious years, elude him, and his only remaining
pleasure is the use of financial power to compel his sons to

52

GOOD AND BAD

submit in their turn to a similarly futije drudgery. Preoccupa-
tion with means rather than ends has made njarriage, in most
civilized countries at most times, a matter of bargaining rather
than of mutual attraction. Where it prevails in an extreme form
it kills all joy of life, all artistic enjoyment and creativeness,
and all spontaneous affection. Misers, whose absorption in
means is pathological, are generally recognized to be unwise,
but minor forms of the same malady are apt to receive undue
commendation. Without some consciousness of ends, life
becomes drab and dreary; in the end the need for excitement
finds a worse outlet than it would otherwise have done, in war
or cruelty or intrigue or some other destructive activity.

Let us consider for a moment the working out of this pre-
occupation with means in the economic system. Let us suppose,
for the sake of concreteness, that you are concerned in the
manufacture of tractors. If you are concerned as a capitalist, the
sole purpose of the tractors is to increase your bank account,
which, if you are prudent, you do not spend, but invest so as to
increase your bank account still further. Wljetlier the tractors
will plough properly is irrelevant, except in so far as is needed
to prevent your firm from getting a bad name. Pierpont
Morgan the elder bought up old ( ondemned rifles during the
American Civil War, and sold them as new to the Army of the
Mississippi; he devoted the proteeds of this and similar trans-
actions to enabling the French to prolong a hopeless struggle
after Sedan. Such was the prevaleiu ethic that he died uni-
versally respected. Similaily the manufacturer who has the skill
to pass off bad tractors as good ones will w'in more respect than
the man who relics upon the excellence of his product and
contents himself with a small profit.

If you are an employee, you will be obsessed by the fear of
unemployment, and will therefore come to regard work as an
end in itself, not as a means to production. Any device by
which a given number of tractors can be produced with less
labour will rouse your liostility, since it creates a risk of your

53

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

losing your means of livelihood. In ^ Genesis work is repre-
sented as a curse, to which Adam's sin condemned his posterity,
but in the modem world it has come to seem a blessing, of
which the amount must on no account be diminished.

If you are a purchaser of tractors, you are almost equally
removed from ultimate ends. The tractors are to be used to
produce food to enable men to work in producing food to
enable men to work . . . and so on in an endless chain, in which
the intrusion of any consideration of what is good on its own
account would be felt by every sound economist or adminis-
trator to be a frivolous irrelevance.

This preoccupation with means is not confined to the realm
of industrial production. Consider the teaching of mathe-
matics. In universities, matliematics is taught mainly to men
who are going to teach mathematics to men who are going to
teach mathematics to. . . . Sometimes, it is true, there is an
escape from this treadmill. Aichimedes used mathemalics to
kill RomaUvS, Galileo to improve the Grand Duke of Tu.sc^any’s
artillery, modern physicists (grown more ambitious) to exter-
minate the human race. It is usually on this account that the
study of mathematics is commended to the general public as
worthy of State support. This utilitarian attitude is, appar-
ently, as prevalent in Soviet Russia as elsewhere. I met some
twenty years ago a Russian prolessor of mathematics who told
me that he had once ventured to suggest to his class that
mathematics is not only to be valued I'or its piiwer of imjiroving
machines, hut this leinark, so he said, was met by the whole
(‘lass with pitying contempt as a lingering remnant of bourgeois
ideology.

When we escape from the exclusive contemplation of
means, the economic process, and the whole of human life,
takes on a completely different aspect. We ask no longer:
what have the producers produced, and what has consumption
enabled the consumcTs in their turn to produce? We ask
instead: what has there been in the lives of consumers and

54

GOOD AND BAD

producers to make them glad to be alive? What have they felt
or known or done that could justify a benevolent Creator and
refute tlie liercNy of a wicked demiurge who created the world
out of &j)itc? Ha^e they experienced the glory of new know-
ledge? Have they known love and friendship? Have they re-
joiced in sunshine and the sj>ring and the smell of flowers? Have
they felt the joy of life that simple communities express in
dance and song? Once in Los Angeles I was taken to see the
Mexican colony — idle vagabonds, I was told, but to me they
seemed to be enjoying more ol‘ what makes life a boon and not
a curse than fell to the lot of my anxious hard-w^orking hosts.
When 1 tried to explain this feeling, liovvever, I was met with
a blank and total lack of comprehension.

But it is jiovv time to end these discursive observations and
address ourselves more closely to the matter in hand.

It is clear, I think, that if w’e had no desires w^e should never
have thought of the antithesis of good and bad. We feel pain
and wish to bo rid of it; we feel pleasure and wish to prolong
it. Wi* are irked by restraints on our freedom, and glad wlten
our movements are unn\strained. hood and drink and love,
wlicii they are lacking, are desired with passionate intensity. If
we were indiflerent to what hap])ens to us, wc should not
believe in the dualisms of good and bad, riglit and wrong,
praiseworthy and blameworfliy, and w^e should ha\e no dith-
culty in submitting to our f:U(‘, whatever it miglit be. In an
inanimate world there would be notlung either good or bad.
1 infer that the definition of “good'’ must bring in desire. I
suggest that an occurrenie is “good" when it satisfies desire,
or, more precisely, that we may define “good" as “satisfaction
of desire". One occurrence is “better" than another if it satisfies
more desires or a more intense desire. I do nut pretend that this
is the only jiossible definition of “g'''od", but only that its
consequences will be found more consonant w'itli the ethical
feelings of the majority of mankind than those of any other
theoretically defensible definition.

55

HUMAn society in ethics and POtITICS

Wlien I define "'g9od" as ^"satisfaction of desire", the
definition implies that the satisfaction of one person's desire is
as good as that of another person's, provided the two desires
are of equal intensity. It follows that the good is not identical
with what people seek in action, for in action each man seeks
the satisfaction of his own desires, whicli usually differ from
those of other people. When I say that each man seeks the
satisfaction of his own desires, I am expressing a truism: all
our acts, except those which are purely reflex, are inspired, of
necessity, by our own desires. This does not mean that we are
wholly egocentric in our actions, since we are not so in our
desires. Most people desire the happiness of their children,
many that of their friends, some that of their country, and a
few that of all mankind. Life insurance shows to what an extent
the wishes of ordinary men go beyond the scope of their own
lives. But though my wislies may be unselfish, they must be
mine if they are to aflect my actions.

If "the good" is defined as "the satisfaction of desire", we
may define "my gtH)d" as "the satisfaction of my desires". It
then follows logically that in action I always seek my gt)od.
My good is a part of the good, but not necessarily the greatest
part that could be realized by a person in my situation. Suppose
I am a small boy who has been secretly given twelve chocolates,
and I have eleven companions who have been given none. I
may have such limited desires that I surreptitiously eat all the
twelve myself, in which case each givTS me less satisfaction
than the one before, and the last perhaps hardly any. Or I may
be so filled with benevolence that I give one to each of my
companions, and eat only one myself. In that case, each choco-
late gives as much satisfaction as the first one gave in the
other case, and the total of satisfaction is greater than in the
other case. Therefore the benevolent boy causes more of the
good to exist than is caused by the selfish boy. This illustrates
how some desires minister more to the general good than other
desires do.

56

GOOD AND BAD

It may be said that we ought to seek the general good, and
not only our own good. I do not deny tins, but I must maintain
that it requires a good deal of elucidation before it acquires a
definite meaning. The word "ought" may be replaced by the
word "right", and we may consider the statement: "Right"
conduct is conduct which promotes the gt^neral good. I am
prepared to accept this as a definition, but if it is to have any
practical importance it must be supplemented by methods of
inducing me to do what is right. I shall not do the right act in
any given circumstances unless I desire to do it, and therefore
the problem is one of influencing mv desires. This may be
done^ in man\^ ways. The criminal law may cause a partial
harmony between my interest and tlie general interest. I may
desire praise and fear blame, which may load me to act in a
w^a}' that will be applauded. I may, by a wise upbringing or a
fortunate luTcdity, have acquin^d a generous nature, which
makes me sj)ontaneously desire the good of others. Or I may,
like Kant, feel an impulse tow^ards rectitude for its own sake.
All these are ways of inducing me to do what is right, but alf
operate by influencing my desires.

If mankind wei*e agreed as to what is "right", we could take
"right" as the fundamental concept in ethics, and define "the
good" as what is achieved by right conduct. But as we have
seen, there is a \ery wide dwcrgence betwx‘en difterent com-
munities as to what they consider right or wrong. In general,
particularly in the case of tabu inorility, this divergence is
traceable to a difference in beliefs as to the elFects of actions,
and there is much less diversity as to what results of actions
are thought desirable. It is this fact that makes it better to
define "right" in terms of "good" rather tlian \ice versa.

Nevertheless, the statement that it is right to pursue the
general good, though it may be set up as a verbal definition of
the word "right", is something more than this, at any rate in
its implications. It means, or implies, that acts promoting tlie
general good are those that will be praised by the community,

57

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

or at least that the general good is promoted if they are praised.
It means, or implies, that it is to every one's interest that every
one else's acts should be of this kind. It implies that there is
more good, i.e. more satisfaction of desire, in a community if
social pressure, whether through the law or through praise and
blame, is applied to induce right action in the above sense than
if it is applied in any other w^ay. For all these reasons, the
statement tliat right conduct is that which promotes the general
satisfaction of desire is one which has a more than verbal
importance.

Against our definition of “good" as “satisfaction of desire"
an objection miglit be raised on the ground that some desires
are evil and their satisfaction is a further evil. The most obvious
example is cruelt}'. Suppose A desires that B should suffer,
and succeeds in satisfying his desire; is this good? Clearly the
whole state of affairs is not good, and our definition does not
imply that it is good. B\s desires are not satisfied, and no more
are those of normal people who have no animus against B. A\
satisfaction is a source of dissatisfaction to others, and A's
desire that B should suffer is one which most people will desire
not to exist, unless B is a person who has incurred the liatred of
the community. But if one could imagine A's satisfaction in
isolatii^n, would it still be e\il.^ Suppose, for instance, that A
were a lunatic filled with insane hatred of B, and confined in
an asylum. It might be thought desirable to let him believe that
B was suffering, and on the whole the state of affairs would be
better ii he had this belief than if he were driven into paroxysms
of rage b\ the thought of B's prosperity. It is only in such
exceptional i in umstances that a desire which runs counter to
the general interest can be satisfied in isolation; but when it
can, the satisfaction supplies its modest quota to the sum-total
of good. I do not think, therefore, that there is any reason to
regard some satisfactions as bad, so long as they are con-
sidered in isolation, without regard to their concomitants and
consequeiK es.

58

GOOD AND BAD

But when desires are considered as m^ans the matter is quite
otherwise. Some pairs of desires are compatible, some incom-
patible. If a man and woman desire to marry each other, both
can be satisfied; but if two men desire to n)arry the same
woman, one at least must be disappointed. If two partners botli
desire the prosperity of tlieir firm, both can acliieve the result;
but if two rivals each desire to be richer than the other, one of
them must fail. What applies to two dcsiies applies ecjually to
groups of desires. Borrowing a term from Lc'ibniz, I call a
number of desires "compossible" when all can be satisfied by
the same state of affairs; when tliey not compossible, I call
them incompatible. When a nation is at war, the desires of all
its citizens for victory arc mutually compossible, but they are
incompatible with the opposite dcAires of the enemy. I'he
desires of those whe feel benevolently to each other arc com-
possible, but those who feel reciprocal malevc^lence have
desires that are incompatible.

It is obvious that there can be a greater total (^f satisfaction
of desire where desires are < ompossiblc than where they are
incompatible. Therefore, aa'ording to our definition of the
good, compossible desires are preferable as means. It follows
that love is preferable to hate, co-operation to c-ompetilion,
peace to w^ar, and so on (Of cour<!c there are exceptions; I am
only stating what is likely to ’ e tiue in most cases.) Tliis leads
to an ethic by \\hich desires may be distinguished as right or
wrong, or, speaking loosely, as goon and bad. Right desires
wnll be those that are capable of being c*)mpossible w‘.th as
many other desires as possible; wrong desires will be those
that can only be satisfied by thwarting other desires. But tliis is a
large theme, and I will leave its development for a later
chapter.

59

CHAPTER V

Partial and General Goods

IN the last chapter we defined the good as satisfaction of desire.
The general good will be tlie total of satisfaction of desire, no
matter by whom enjoyed. The good of a section of mankind
will be the satisfaction of the desires of tliat section, and the
good of an individual will be the satisfaction of the desires of
that individual. It is obvious that the various partial goods
may conflict: when two men compete in a Presidential election,
one of them will fail to have his desire satisfied, and so, in a
lesser degree, will tlie percentage of the electorate that voted
for him. As this illustration shows, it is possible for the desires
of individuals or groups to conflict without any culpab^ity on
either side. Conflicts of desire are an essential and inescapable
fact of human life. One of the main purposes of law and morality
is to mitigate them, but thev can never be wholly abolished.

There are various systems of morality, which take diftering
views as to the class whose good an individual should seek.
These systems all co-exist, and many individuals hold sometimes
one, sometimes another. Each of them is embodied in familiar
maxims.

Christ taught that a man should ])ursue the general good.
This is the jmrport of the precept "thou shalt love thy neigh-
bour as thyself", together w^ith the explanatory parable of the
Good Samaritan, showing that a member of a group usually
regarded w'ith hostility Is to be considered a neighbour. The
same view w^as taken by the Buddhists, and by the Stoics
{humani nihil a me alienum puto).

Since the rise of nationalism, it has been common to substi-
tute the good of one’s own nation for that of all mankind as the

PARTIAL AND GENERAL GOODS

proper aim of a virtuous man's endeavours. This view is
embodied in sucli maxims as "for king and country", "my
country, right or wrong", "Deutschland liber allcs",^ etc. I
knew some Russian revolutionaries during the Russo-Japanese
war who drank a toast "to the failure of Russian arms"; it
gave me a shock, although with my reason I agreed with them.
During the recent war, many British patriots had difficulty in
approving of anti-Nazi Germans who desired the defeat of
Hitler. Until the inauguration of the League of Nations, it
w^as taken as axiomatic that a country's foreign policy should
take account only of its own interests. Since that date, though the
practice has remained unchanged, there has been some modifi-
cation of the theory. When we sing the National Anthem, w'e
no longer permit ourstlves to pr(x:1aim with gusto the lines
wishing ill to foreigners:

Irustralc their kna\ish tricks,

Confound their politics,

And make them fall.

But many of us still cherish the same sentiments in our hearts.

Some men give their loyalty, not so much to their country,
as to their colour: white, black, brown, yellow', as the case may
be. I am told that at Port au IVinc'e, in Haiti, there are statues of
Christ and Satan: Christ is black, and Satan is white. This
strikes white men as odd, but the opposite practice of Christian
art everywdiere else a]:)pears to them entirely natural. Kipling
proclaimed white supremacy with his <ioctrine of "lesser breeds
without the law". The Chinese bellevc'd in yellow supremacy
till 1840, and the Japanese till 19 K5. All these points of view
involved the belief that only the gcH>d of one race is important.

Another section to which some hold that loyalty should be
confined is one’s own class. The King, In his palmy days, took

* The first of these maxims expresses the noble idealism of die British,
the third shows the moral depravity of the Germans. Otherwise there is
no difference between them.

6 }

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

for his motto: "God and my right"; at that time, subjects had
no rights. When the aristocracy governed. Lord John Manners
stated their claims in the immortal lines:

Let laws and learning, art and manners, die.

But God preser\'e our old nobility.

As champion of the wage-earners, Marx retorted with his
slogan: "Proletarians of all countries, unite."

There are tliose who go further still in limiting loyalty. Con-
fucius very nearly confined it to the family; some theorists
and multitudes of practical men have confined it to the Self,
and have embodied their philosophy in the proverb "charity
begins at lunne".

Each of these doctrines expresses something of the prevalent
desires of large gi-oups of men, and could not otherwise have
achieved wide-sj)read j)opularity. I wish to consider whether
there is anything of a theoretical kind to be said in favour of
any one of them as against any other.

Let us begin with egoism, by winch I mean the doctrine that
every man does — or should— pursue exclusively his own
interest. To make this doctrine precise, w'e must first define
wiiat we mean by a man’s "inUTCSt". The most |>recisc defini-
tum is tl’at of the dextrine called "psuiiological hedonism",
which assorts that e\erv man not only does, but ine\itablv
must, pursue exdusi\ciy his own pleasure. This doctrine was
held b\ all the earlicT utilitarians. It followed that, if "virtue"
consists in pursuing the general good, the only way to make
men \irtuous is to produce a liarmony between general and
private interests, by insuring tliat th(‘ act which will produce
the maximum of pleasure for myself is also that which will
produce the maximum of pleasure for the community. In the
absence of the criminal law 1 should steal, but fear of prison
keeps me honest. If I enjo}^ being praised and dislike being
blamed, the moral sentiments of my neighbours have an efi'ect

62

PARTIAL AND GENERAL GOODS

similar to that of the criminal law. Belief in everlasting rewards
and punishments in the next life should, on a rational com-
putation, be an even more efficient safeguard of virtue.

But it is not the case tliat men desire only their own pleasure.
There is a confusion arising from tlie fact that, whatever you
may desire, you will obtain pleasure from achieving }oiir
object, but in most cases the desire is the source of the pleasure,
whereas j)sycliological hedonism sup])oses the anticipated
pleasure to be tlie cause of the desire. Tliis applies espe('ia]ly to
the simplest desires, such as hunger. 'Fhe hungry man desires
food, whereas the well-fed gourmet dc‘sires the pleasure to be
derived frotn food. The desire for food is one which we share.*
with the animals, whereas the desire for the pleasure of good
food is a sophisticated product of cookerj, mc'inory, atid
imagination.

rurther>the pleasure to be derived from achieving a desired
object consists, in general, of two parts, one that of achiev'e-
ment, the other tliat beh^nging to the object on its own account.
If you chase round the town in searc'h of oranges, and at last
obtain some, you have net only the pleasure that the oranges
would have given you if you had obtainc^d them witliout cliffi-
cultv, but also the jileasure of sucress. Only the latter is ifluays
prevsent when a devsire is satisfied; tlie forme**' may, on occasion,
be absent.

The psychological hedonist is thus mistaken in supposing
that what we desire is always plc'asup . bur he is mistaken also
in another respect wiiic'h is, for us, of vVen more importarc'e.

What a man desires need not be an experience of his own, or
a series of experiences, or anything to he realized in his own
life. It is not only possible, but usual, to luue objects of desire
which lie wdiollv c)utsidc our own lives. Tlic iiLLst common
example of this is parental feeling. A iM^ge percentage of man-
kind, probably a majority, desire that tlieir children shall
prosper after they themselves are dead. Tlie same thing is true
of wives, and of some women who arc* not wives; Charles II,

6S

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

in dying, hoped that Nell Gwyn would not be allowed to
starve. The man whose desires are limited within the circle of
his own experiences will find, as he grows older and his future
becomes more circumscribed, tliat life grows continually
narrower and less interesting, until nothing remains but to sit
by the fire and keep warm. On the other hand, the man whose
desires have a large scope outside his own life may retain to the
end the zest of earlier years; the Platonic Socrates, while he is
dying, is as anxious as before to spread what he considers the
true philosophy. Some men desire not only the welfare of their
family and their friends, but <^f their nation, and even of all
mankind. In some degree this is normal; there are few men
whose last hours of life would not be rendered more unhappy
if they could know that within a hundred years atomic bombs
would extinguish human life.

What is true in psychological hedonism is that my desires
inevitably determine my behaviour. What is false is (l) that
my desires are always for my i>leasure, (2) that my^ desires
are limited to what is going to happen to me. Not all desires
are egoistic, and the belief that they are has caused needless
difficulties for a whole school of ethical philosophers. There is
no limit to the remoteness of what a man may desire, tliough a
desire will not influence action unless there is thought to be
some means of achieving it. ^ ou may wish that Hannibal had
won the Second Punic War, or hope that there is life in some
of the remoter nebulae, but there is nothing that you can do
about it, and ther<*fore such desires are without practical
importance.

Desires w'iuch are not egocentiic are almost as likely as
selfish desires to conflict with those of others. Suppose, for
example — to take an in. tance which is by no means far-fetched
— that one group of mankind wishes all the world to be com-
munist, while another group wishes all the world to be Catholic.
If, in such a case, there is to be any method except a trial of
strength, it can only be by finding some other desire in which

64

PARTIAL AND GENERAL GOODS

the two groups arc at one — say tlie desire to avoid war. If
there is no such common desire, co-operation is impossible, and
neither group c*in rise from its own good to a conception of the
general good tliat both sides can acknowledge. This problem is
not a purely theoretical one; it is a problem upon whose solu-
tion depends the possibility of eliminaling war and establishing
an international go\ eminent. But if we are to examine it dis-
passionately, it will be wise to state it in the most abstract and
Uieoretical manner that is p(>ssible, which I shall now proceed
to do to the best of my abilit}’.

When a man’s desires are limited, in the main though per-
haps ric^t c<)mj)letel 3 , to the interests of '*ome one group, such
as his own nation, race, elass, or sex, there are tliree different
ctliical altitudes that he may adopt, first, he mav sa\ that tlie
interests of mankind are, in the* long run, identical with those
of his group, although nicmbeis of other groujis, in their
seKish blindiK'ss, <irc unable to ste this. Second: 1 k' may say
that his gioup alone counts in the realm ^‘f ends, and tliat the
re^'t are to lie regardc*d as mere means towards ^atlsfyIrlg the
desires of his own gnaip. Tliird: lie mu} hold that, wliile /le
slioulu only take accounl of the interests of group A, to which
he belongs, a man belonging to group B should sinv^arly
take acc'ount only of the interests of grouf' B. Each of tiiese
MeWwS has impoiiant adher nts, and eacli deserxos to be
considered.

I'he first \iew, wliicli ma\ be that of enlightened

imperialism, presupposes a doc ti Inc il it some state of society
are better than otliers, c-\en if large groups of mankind do not
tliink so. Those who adopt this \iew' wdll say tliat it is better
to be civilized than sa\age, or C’luistian than pagan, or mono
gamous than polygamous, or industrious tlian ki/}, or what nt^t.
The CJreeks considered their way of lif better Ilian that of the
barbarians, and after Alexander this belief took an imperialistic
form. Antioclius v^ainly endi'avourod to make the Jews eat pork
and take to adilelics, but in general, throughout the Near East,

E 6o

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

the Greek way of life commended itself to the conquered
populations, at any rate in the cities. The Romans inherited
this Hellenistic outlook in their successful civilizing of the
West. Later, Christians and Mohammedans took a similar
view of the importance of their respective religions. The
British in India regarded themselves unqucstioningly as a
civilizing influence: Macaulay had no doubt that it was our
beneficent mission to bring our litera ture, our law, and our
philosophy to the help of the backward nation for which Provi-
dence had made us responsible.

The most elaborate theoretical justification for theories of
this kind is to be found in Hegel and Marx. In Hegel there is a
World Spirit or a World Conductor who presides over the
development .of civilization, and uses diftcrent nations succes-
sively as its instruments. At one time it divided its attentions
between Meso])otamia and the banks of the Nile; then it
migrated to Greece, to Rome, and, for the past 1,400 years, to
Germany. At some unspecified but distant date it will Gross the
Atlantic and settle in the United States. At each stage the
nation which is, for the lime, the vehicle of the World Spirit
is justified in being imperialistic, and will succeed in its
enterprises until its era comes to an end; nations that
resist it, as Carthage resisted Rome, arc blind to their
subordinate plare in the cosmic scheme, and are doomed to
inevitable defeat.

Marx adopted this philosophy of history, with only two
slight modifications. He changed the name of the World
Conductor to ‘'Dialectical Materialism'*, and he substituted
classes for nations. At one time the feudal aristocracy were the
vehicle of progress; at the French Revolution this role passed
to the bourgeoisie; at the Communist Revolution (which
turned out to be not that of 1848) it was to pass to the prole-
tariat. The Communist Revolution having now taken place in
Russia, Russian imperialism has become justified equally on
Marxist and on Hegelian principles.

66

PARTIAL AND GENERAL GOODS

I come now to the second type of theory, according to which
"the good" is something limited to a certain group, the rest of
mankind being either obstacles to be swept away or means to
be utilized to the best advantage of those who alone have
importance as ends. Most people, quite unreflectingly, take up
this attitude towards animals: lions and tigers are obstacles,
sheep and cows are useful means, but neither in the one case
nor ill the otlier do we seriously consider their welfare as part
of the general good at which a wise statesman should aim. It is
true that in modern times humanitarians have protested, with
a certain measure of success, against cruelty to animals; never-
theless fox-hunting continues. Moreover the Church has alwaj^s
taught, and still teaches, that man has no duties towards the
lower animals; on this ground Pope Pius IX regarded the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals as ethically
heretical, and forbade* the establishment of a branch in Rome.
In spite of the humanitarians, we may still say that most
people, in most countries, regard animals merely as means or
obstacles.

Wliere liuman beings are concerned, religion, more especially
the Christian religion, wholly repudiates this view. In Christian
theory, a man has no right to murder one of his slaves, or to
force a female slave into ermeubinage, or to dissolve the
marriages of slaves; in religious matters, all men are equal.
But althougii this is the official doctrine, it has been very far
from being the practice in most Christian countries at most
times. Wherever slavery has prevailed, the above theoretical
rights of slaves have not been acknowledged either by indivi-
duals or by the law courts. Most w^hite men in North America
formerly regarded Negroes as useful, Indians as a nuisance, but
in neither case did the}’^ consider tlie good of the Indian or the
Negro as having any bearing on what the white man should
do. This attitude has been very greatly softened during the last
hundred years, but more of it still lingers than is generally
admitted.

67

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLIIICS

The same sort of things are to be said about child labour in
tlie early days of British industrialism, about forced labour and
concentration camps in Germany and Russia, and about the
Nazi treatment of Jews.

The best theoretical exponent of this ethic in modem times
has been Nietzsche. He held that there are certain great men,
or heroes, whose thoughts and emotions are important, but
that the mass of mankind are to be censidered solely as means
or obstacles to the florescence of the superior few. The French
Revolution, he says, was justified because it produced Napoleon.
There is a difficulty in giving precision to this doctrine, since
there is no precise definition of the “hero”; in jiractice, he is
just someone whom Nietzsche admires. It is much easier to
give precision to the doctrine in its more popular forms, as
man \er.sus woman, white men versus coloured men, capitalists
versus wage-earners, gentiles versus Jews, etc. But in theory
Nietzsche’s doctrine could be made precise: it could be said,
for instance, that the only men who “count” are thoJte with an
intelligence (piotient of ISO and upward.s. It is to be expected
that men with an intelligence quotient of 179 would wish
the doctrine slightlj modified, but ])erhaps a government
of the super-intelligent would find ways of dealing with
them.

The third theory, of those mentioned above, is that every
man's duty is confined to his own group, .so that, while A
should take actount only of one section of mankind, B, who
does not belong to tliis section, sliould only take account of
another. This opinion has Iiad few' supporters among theoretical
writers on ethics, but it is widely held in practice. A great
many people hold that duty to one’s country should override
dutj to mankind. If a German U-boat Commander, from disap-
proval of the Nazis, had caused his vessel to fall into the hands
of the British, few British naval officers would have approved
his action, however glad they might have been that it had
taken place. In China, until recently, there w'as a similar

68

PARTIAL AND GENERAL GOODS

attitude about duty to one's family, which was held to be more
imperative than duty to the State, and to justify actions obvi-
ously contrary to the public interest. In some degree most
people would have some sympathy with this point of view; we
should judge leniently a man who had obeyed the orders of the
Nazis for fear lest they should torture his cliildren.

As a matter of tlieory, this point of view demands a separa-
tion of "right” from "good”. However "good” may be
defined, "right” conduct will no longer be that likely to produce
tile maximum of good in general, but that likely to produce
the maximum of good to a certain group of which the agent is
a member. The ethical consc(}uenccs will be diftcrent according
to the kind of group that is chosen, e.g. family, nation, class, or
creed. No good ground can be given for choosing one way of
dividing mankind into groups rather than another. Nor is it
easy to invent any plausible reason for ignoring the good of
people outside one's own group and conceding a reciprocal
liberty on their part. For this theory does not contend, like our
first and second tlu*ories, that our own group is superior to the
others; it is a polite theory, although its consequences in
practice are just the same as if it were not. On the whole, it has
less plausibility than the other two, and I doubt if it is held
with equal sincerity outside the ranks of officers of the armed
services of civilized countries.

The theories that w^e havx* been considering are among those
that deny, or seem to deny, that right conduct is that most
likely to promote the general good. The first, which we called
that of enlightened imperialism, does not really make this
denial; it says that, when the future is taken into account, there
is one group (to whicli, by good fortune ihv^ person proclaiming
the doctrine happens to belong) viiose desires, when satisfied,
will bring more satisfaction to future generations tluui those of
any other group. This doctrine, when it is true in fact, justifies
its adherents in considering that in pursuing their own aims
they are pursuing the general good. On such grounds one may

69

HUMAN* SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

justify Alexander’s conquest of the East and Caesar's conquest
of Gaul; perhaps also the white man’s expulsion of the Indian
from most of the territory of the United States. The whole
question, in this case, is one of fact, not of theory, and since it
is theory tliat concerns us we need say no more on this subject.

The second theory, which we may call that of the superman,
may be capable of a similar explanation. It may be said that
the superman's desires and pleasures and pains are so im-
measurably more intense than those of ordinary men that they
contribute more to the total than those of millions of the
"bungled and botched”, as Nietzsche calls them. But this
contention is not very plausible. Shake.speare says:

The poor beetle tliat we tread upon
In lorporal sufferance feels a pang as great
As wlien a giant dies.

Without go'mg so far as this, we cannot well maintain that
Napoleon’s J03S and sorrows exceeded the sum of aU the joys
and sorrows of the millions who lived through the French
Revolution or perished while it was in progress. But if we do
not maintain something cithis sort, we are faced by the logical
impossibility of defining the class of supermen. In practice,
vanity and conceit funiish the definition: I am, of course, a
superman, and I must admit enough jieople of approximately
equal merit to give the group a chance of surviving the indigna-
tion and ridicule of the rest. But this is not a theory; it is
merely a myth generated by megalomania.

The third theory, according to whicli each man should con-
cern himself exclusively with his own gioup, has a certain
measure of practical wisdom. I can probably do more for my
own family than for some family in Central Africa, and there-
fore Mrs. Jellaby was misguided. But as the world grows more
interconnected the scope of such considerations becomes more
and more limited. When the world’s food supply is inadequate,
if I am part of the public that refuses to consider the needs of

70

PARTIAL AND GENKRAL GOODS

Other countries I am helping to bring slow and painful death
to millions. The doctrine is not logically respectable except in
the extreme form of egoism, and in this form, as we saw at the
beginning of this chapter, it is not true to human nature.

I conclude that, .so far, we have found no definable partial
good which it is rational to substitute for the general good as
the right end of action. But this raises the question of moral
obligation, which will be considered in the following chapter.

71

CHAPTER VI

Moral Obligation

IN this chapter I wish to discuss the concept involved when I
say; ought to do so-and-so", or “I have a moral obligation tP
do so-and-so", or '‘such-and-such an act is morally righV\ So
far, I have been content to say that the "right" act is that most
likely to promote the general good; but this, though I believe
it to be true, may be not a definition, but a highly debatable pro-
position. If you ask "wliat ought I to do?" and I reply "you
ought to do w^hat will j>robably promote the general good", I
am not telling you \\\^ meaning of your question, which you feel
that you already know. Your ^ituation is analogous to that of
a child who asks "what is bread made of?" and is told bread is
made of flour". "J'he child is already familiar with bread, and is not
asking for a verbal definition of the word "bread"; the answer,
therefore, increases his cuhnary rather than his linguistic know-
ledge. So it is if I say you ought to pursue the general good: this
statement, true or false, is a proposition of ethics, not a verbal pro-
position such as we have a right to expect from the dictionary.

There are in fact a number of ethical systems, which differ
as to what I ought to do. One man may say: you ought to obey
the will of God. Another ma}' say: you ought to aim at the
maximum of pleasure for mankind. Yet another may say: you
ought to seek self-realization, or glory, or the victory of your
country. But although all these people give different answers as
to wdiat I ought to do, they all attach the same meaning to the
word "ought", for, if they did not, their disagreement would be
only as to words, and would have little practical importance.
It is this common meaning underlying ethical disagreements
that I am now concerned to examine.

72

MORAL OBLIGATION

Many ethical writers maintain that "ought" is an ultimate
and unanalysable concept, of which no verbal definition is
possible. That is to say, it, or some equivalent, must be part of
the minimum vocabulary^ of ethics; perhaps it may even be the
only indefinable ethical term. Other writers have offered various
definitions. Finally, it might be maintained that there is no
such concept, that "you ought to do this" must be interpreted
as "I approve of your doing this" (where approval is a specific
^motion), and that the pretence of objectivity in my statement
is a fraudulent endeavour to give legislative authority to my
own wishes. Is there any way of deciding between these
different views.^

Some might maintain that obedience is what is essential to the
concept of moral obligation. This view no longer commands as
much assent as it did in former times, when it was regarded as
unquestionable that children should obey their parents, wives
should obey their husbands, subjects should obey the king, and
the king should obey the will of God. Rut as w^e have already
seen, it is heretical, and very properly so, to hold that right
and wrong are coiistiiuted by God's decrees, since in that case
they might just as well have been the opposite of what they are.
It is always right to obey CJod's decrees because God always
wills what is right, not because the opposite would be right if
He willed it; when we say tliat (jod's decrees are right, we are
not uttering a mere tautology. We cannot therefore dejine
"right" as "obeying God's will", even though we may hold
that obedience to God's w'ill is always right. Obedience to any
human will is not likely to be alwa\^s right; kings, husbands,
and fathers may on occasion command what is wicked. For
these reasons, it seems impossible to define moral obligation in
terms of obedience, even when the whole of traditional theology
is accepted as valid.

There are similar objections to defining "ought" in terms of
approval. We feel emotions of approval or disapproval, w’hich

^ On minimum vocabularies see Human Knowledge, Part IV, Chap. II.

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

are often very strong, and when we disapprove we say "he
ought not to have done that". If all men agreed as to what
should be approved and what disapproved, we might ]>ossibly
use these sentiments to define moral obligation. But, as we
have seen, different ages and different regions differ profoundly
as to what they approve or disapprove, and even in one country
at one time there are disagreements, for instance between
vivisectors and anti-vivisectors, and between conscientious
objectors and the rest of the population. If, then, aj)proval is to
be used in defining moral obligation, we shall have to decide
whose approval. Three possible answers suggest themselves:
first, tlidt of constituted authority; second, that of my con-
science; third, that of the agent's conscience. Constituted
authority will not do, since it is possible for it to command
what is wrong, and my conscience wdll not do, since I have
clearly no right to de('larc myself a moral dictator. It remains
to examine the third view, that what a man ouglit to do is
w'hat his own conscienre approves.

Accortling to this theory, there are a pair of opposite emo-
tions wdiich may be called "moral approval" and "moral disap-
proval" respectively; whi‘a a man fc'cls the former towards a
contemplated act, lie will be riglit if he performs it, and wdien
the latter he will Ik* wrong. Or we may take the more emphatic
view that an inner voice says "do this" or "do not do that",
w’henever the agent chooses to listen tor it. The daiinon to
which Socrates trusted was of this sort, except that it only
gave negative commands: it forbade wrong actions, but did not
enjoin right one>. There is no important difference between the
two forms of the theorj^, which take "approval" as an emotion,
or as an inner voic(‘. I shall discuss the former, but just the
same considerations are applicable to the latter.

It should be' observed, to begin with, that the differences
between different men's consciences afford no argument against
this theory. The Quaker and the head-lmnter each do right in
following his own conscience, the Quaker in not killing when

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MORAL OBLIGATION

the Government says he should, and the head-hunter in killing
when the Government says he should hot. The tlieory has no
need of an objective ‘'good'" that right action should tend to
realize, since “right” action is defined, not by its effects, but
by its cause, wliicli must be the voice of conscience.

Although, on this tlieory, a man always docs right in obeying
his conscience, there is no reason why another man should not
wish that liis conscience told him something different. A's con-
science may urge him to try to alter the dictates of B's con-
science, for exampl<‘ if A is the European administrator of a
cannibal district and B is a cannibal. In such cinnimstances
consciences are very easily altered, as appears from the fact
that cannibalism is almost extinct. But such changes, if our
present theory is right, must be effected entirelv by non-
rational means, since no valid argument is conceivable by
which it could be shown that one sort of conscience is morally
superior to another. It i.s no use to prove to a man that an act
whu'h he regards as right will have unpleasant consequences,
for he may say: “what of that.^ Morality has nothing to do with
pleasure”. Of course if he allows himself an argument, you
may be able to produce a counter-argument; if, for example,
he appeals to Scripture, you may be able to prove that the
passage in ejuestion has been mistranslated. But so long as he
abstains from giving any reason bevond his own conscience he
is logically impregnable.

I do not think this theoiy can be refuted, in the sense of
being shown to inv^olvc some logical absurJit}, but I think it
can be proved to have conse<iuences which hardly any one
w'ould accept. The most glaringly paradoxical of these conse-
quences is that there can be no ethical reason for preferring
one man's conscience to another's. There can of course be non-
ethical reasons: if I am a beggar, 1 sliall prefer a conscience
that enjoins charity to one that holds it wicked to encourage
idleness, and if I am a statesman I shall prefer an opponent
whose conscience approves of compromise to one who views

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

every question as a matter of principle. But I cannot say that
the type of man I prefer is a better man, for every man who
follows his conscience is morally perfect. I cannot say that the
conscience of a man who is both civilized and humane is better
than that of a savage whose outlook is bounded by hunting and
war. I cannot admit that a man's conscience is worsened when
it becomes blunted by persistent evil doing, so that in the end
it no longer protests against his habitual sins. This has the
shocking consequence that long-continued sin makes virtue
easier, since it diminishes the number of things that conscience
forbids. All these paradoxes follow if every man’s conscience is
the ultimate arbiter of what is right for him.

Let us consider for a moment what are the causes tliat in fact
determine a man's opinions as to what is right. The most
important, in the great majority of cases, is moral eduiation in
childhood, consisting, in the main, of expressions of disapproval,
possibly varied by approval on rare occasions. The disapproval
may be merely verbal, or may involve definite punislmient ; in
either ca.se, the child concludes tliat conduct of a certain sort is
blamed, by parents certainly, by neighbours probably, and by
God if the child is piously brought up. The association with
blame may die down in adult life, and there tlien remains only
a disagreeable feeling connected with acts of the kind in ques-
tion. This disagreeable feeling may appear as an emotion of
disapproval. Of course moral education of this kind is not
confined to childhood; boys and young men acquire readily the
moral sentiments of their social milieu, whatever these senti-
ments may be. The boy who has been taught at home that it is
wicked to swear, easily loses this belief w'hen he finds that the
schoolfellows whom he most admires are addicted to blasphemy.

I do not think, howe\cr, that con.science can be wholly re-
solved into an effect, conscious or unconscious, of the praise
and blame that a man has experienced. There are moral
pioneers, who refuse to blame something habitually blamed, or
to praise something habitually praised. Praise and blame

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MORAL OBLIGATION

themselves have not grown up out of nothing, but have been
generated from moral feelings, or at any rate from feelings of
which some arc moral.

Consider the extreme of praise, namely fame. Men become
famous in many different ways, the commonest being the
possession of some rare .skill. Shakespeare, Napoleon, film
stars, and great athletes can do things that other people would
like to do but cannot. In rivals this is a ground of envy, but in
those who arc too humble to be rivals it is a ground of admira-
tion: Huygens and Leibniz were delighted by the rumour that
Newton had gone mad, but Pope, who did not aspire to scien-
tific eminence, could praise Newton suicerely up to the limits
of his deserts. Praise for skill, however, is not moral praise.
Though Socrates thought otlierwise, modern moralists hold
that no skill and no knowledge are required for virtuous action
— a view which is suggested in the New Testament. There are,
how'ever, men and women who are officially famous for their
virtue; they are the Saints. A Saint, it is true, must have other
merits in addition to those that are moral ; he must, for instance,
work miracles after he is dead. But for our purposes we may
ignore these other merits; the residue will show what the
consensus of Western mankiml has held to be the greatest
proof of pre-eminent virtue.

Confining our attention to the more famous among the
Saints (for some, like the excellent St. Gubby, have only local
celebrity), we find that a very large proportion owe their
position to their activities in spreading the Faith. Some have
done this by their writing.s, like the Evangelists, St. Augustine,
and St. Thomas Aquinas; others have done it as missionaries,
like St. Thomas the Apostle, St. Boniface, ami St. Francis
Xavier; a third group, like King Louis IX, distinguished
themselves in war against the infidel; a fourtli were noted as
organizers of persecution, like St, Cyril and St. Dominic.
Above all there is the Noble Arm}' of Martyrs — men who died
rather than renounce the Catholic Faith, for to die on behalf of

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any other faith is no x:redit to the victim. It is possible to
achieve saintship by notable benevolence, for instance in alms-
giving, but this alone does not, as a rule, lead to great fame.

It would seem that the moral qualities which are most
actively admired are courage and self-sacrifice on behalf of one's
own group. Some men admire these qualities wherever they
occur; others only admire them when displayed by members of
their own herd. The Inquisition did not admire the courage of
the heretic martyrs whom it condemned, but regarded their
stubbornness as inspired by the Devil. In war, some men
admire bravery on the part of the enemy, others do not. There
^is a broad rule about praise, that it is bestowed upon those who
have sacrificed tlieir own interests (or what seemed such) to
' the interests of otliers. The desire for praise and the fear of
blame may be so great that they outweigh all other considera-
tions: ''death rather than dishonour" is considered a desirable
sentiment, but is not, strictly speaking, an unselfish one. The
same sort of thing operates in less dramatic forms: IT I were
tempted to try to defraud a railw^ay company by travelling
without a ticket, the fear of disgrace in the event of discovery
would be a far more powerful ileterrent than the legal penalty.
In this way praise and blame supplement the criminal law in
causing individual interests to harmonize with those of the
community.

But although praise and blame are useful, they would be less
useful than they are if utility were their conscious basis. Cer-
tain kinds of acts, which may in fact be useful, arc admired
independently of their utility, and are admired most when they
are not done from a desire for praise; others, on the other hand,
are blamed independently of their disutility. There are other
emotions, in addition to love of praise and fear of blame,
which prompt acts such as are praised ; a man may forgo his
own advantage from affection or benevolence or truthfulness,
or even from sheer combativencss. Generals who die in the
moment of victory, like Epaminondas and Wolfe, are supposed

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MORAL OBLIGATION

to die happy, because desire for victory is stronger than desire
for life.

"Conscienre", to which we must now reluni, may, I tliink,
be defined as praise and blame directed towards oneself in
respect of some contemplated act. In most people this is a
reflection of the praise and blame that will be bestowed by
their community, but in some, owing to emotional or intel-
lectual peculiarities, it has a more individual (|uality. A man
who has an exceptional dislike to tlie infliction of pain may
become an anti-vivisectionist and an opponent of capital
punishment. A man who has an exceptional respect for the
Gospels may refuse to take an oath. Mormons think it wicked
to smoke, because their sacred book forbids the use of tobacco.
Tolstoy and Gandhi, in later life, considered sex wicked even
in marriage; I do not know their exact reasons, but I suspect
them of being similar to those set forth for a slightly different
thesis by St. Augustine in the City of God. In such ways a
man's standards of praise and blame may differ from those of
his neighbours, and if he is a “conscientious’' man he will
follow his own standards rather than theirs.

NVe may perhaps distinguish “subjective" and “objective"
rightness, saying that a man's conduct has “subjective" right-
ness when it is what liis owm conscience* apjn’oves, but that this
docs not insure “objective ' rightness. In tliat case, the question
“what ouglit I to do?" is ambiguous. If “ought" is taken in the
sense of subjective rightness, I ought to follow’ my conscience,
but if in the sense of objective rightness (which remains to be
defined), m}’^ action wdll have to satisfy some less personal test
before it can be approved. If w^e admit, as I think we must,
that not all consciences are perfect, we shall be com])elled to
seek for a concept of “objective rightness" by which con-
sciences can be judged.

I think myself that “objective rightness" is a concept not
capable of precision, but definable, in so far as it is definable, in
terms of the desires of persons other than die agent, or rather

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

of many persons of whom the agent is only one. Tlie main
purpose of morals is to promote behaviour serving the interests
of the group, and not merely of the individual. I think that the
“objectively right” act is that which best serves the interest of
the group that is regarded as ethically dominant. The difficulty
is that this group will be differently defined by different people
and in different circumstances. It may be the family, the firm,
the nation, the Church, or mankind a<« a whole; it may even be
larger than mankind, and include all sentient beings. Which of
these groups is chosen to define “objective riglitness” will
depend upon what is the collection of human beings that is
making the definition. At a French “conseil do famille” it will
be the family; at a j^hareholders’ meeting, the firm; at a court
martial, tlie nation; at a trial of a priest for indiscipline,
the Chui-ch. At the trials of war criminals, it is nominally
the interests of mankind that dominate. In laws regulating
vivisection, the animals must, by a fiction, be supposed to be
capable of stating their case.

Is there any theoretical ground for preferring one of these
groups to another as the basis foi the definition of "objective
rightness”? I do not see that there is. In a former chajiter I
defined “right” by reference to the satisfaction of desire in
general, that is to saj, bv taking account of all sentient beings.
But I do not know how, by any purely logical argument, to
refute a man who maintains that only the desires of Germans
should be considered. This \iew has been refuted on the battle-
field, but tan it be refuted in the study? When I say that it has
been refutetl on the battlefield, am I admitting that if Germany
had been victorious the view would have been valid? I am
naturally reluctant to say this, and I do not believe it, so let
us see what there is to be said on the other side.

If the concept of “objective rightness” is to serve any pur-
pose, it must satisfy two conditions, one theoretical and the
other practical. The theoretical condition is that there must be
some way of knowing what kinds of acts are “objectively

80

MORAL OBLIGATION

right*'; the practical condition is that, ^t least for some people,
the fact that an act is recognized as objectively right must be a
motive prompting its performance.

Let us first take the view that "objectively right" is inde-
finable. In that case, if anything is to be known about it, there
must be at least one indemonstrable proposition about it, the
truth of which will have to he recognized by an ethical intuition.
I may say that I ha\'c such an intuition telling me that the
objectively right act is that which probably docs most to pro-
mote the general good. If everybody agreed with me, this
theory might be acceptable. It is, in any case, not logically
refutable. You cannot prove that there is no such concept, or
that I do not know what I say I know about it. But ef[nal1y I
cannot prove that you arc mistaken if you say that the objec-
ti\el\ right act is that w^hich promotes your good, or that of
Germans, or tliat of white men. I shall, if I argue, be compelled
to resort to vulgar abuse. I ran say: "Sir, you are misusing
terms. Ethical intuition is a noble faculty, of which you arc
evidently destitute. It is a faculty which teaches disinterested-
ness, which requires you to get outside Self and view the world
with God-like impartiality. It is in the sphere of action what
the scientific outlook is in the sphere of thought. But as for
you, you arc earth-bound you are fettered to the accidents of
your birth, you are a grovelling wretch incapable of emanci-
pation from bondage to the here and nou' ”

I can make this sj)eech, witli such embellishments as my
rhetorical skill may suggest, but will it carry conviction to my
interlocutor? It may do if he already has a profound respect for
me, or if he is a schoolboy exposed for years to my subtle
propaganda. But if he is a Nazi and I an' his prisoner, he will
merely subject me to torture and -k mi-slar\ ation until I admit
that he has the best of the argument. For this I may hate and
despise him, but I cannot refute him. It might seem, then, that
the whole disagreement is in the sphere of feeling and passion,
not in that of theoretical truth and falsehood.

F

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

It may be said that I, am conceding more than I need. There
may be such a faculty as ethical intuition, and I may possess it,
but there may be many men who are destitute of it. H. G.
Wells’s story, ‘The Country of the Blind’’, relates the efforts
of a man with normal eyesight to persuade a blind population
that he possesses a sense of which they are destitute; he fails,
and in the end they decide to put out his eyes to cure him of
his delusion. So it may be with ethi<'al intuition, but if most
men are ethically blind the fate of those wlio have ethical vision
is likely to resemble that of Wells’s seer. Indeed the history of
moral reformers bears out this ^ iew.

Let us ask: w^hat does, in psycliological fact, determine what
a man will think objectively right.? Primarily moral rules learnt
in youth, such as those constituting the Decalogue. But if lie is
a reflective person, inclined to ethical and political philosophy,
he will seek for some unifying principle from which moral rules
can be deduced. He will realize that, if his princijile is to make
a wide appeal, he must not choose a principle whirti gives a
special position to himself or to some group to which he
belongs, unless he believes himself or his group strong enough
to achieve world dominfrion. We all believe this domination
possible as regards men venus animals. We know that we can,
on the whole, make animals beha\e in a way that furthers our
interests: sheep and cattle yield wool and milk and flesh, tigers
roar behind bars for the amusement ot children instead of
eating us when they feel so disposed. Black men were similarly
regarded so long as the slave trade persisted. Objective right-
ness is, as these instances show, habitually defined with refer-
ence only to a dominant group, so long as its dominance is
unquestioned. But when it is not, our ethical philosopher must
widen his outlook if he hopes that his doctrine will win general
assent.

There are, as we have seen, two ways in which moral rules
can be made general. One is to define the general good, and to
say that all men ought to pursue it. The other is to define the

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MORAL OBLIGATION

private good of an individual or group, and to say that each
individual ought to pursue his own good or that of his group.
The view that eacli individual ought to pursue the good of his
group (as opposed to his own good) is that which must be
held by those who make patriotism or family loyalty the
supreme duty. To this view, as we have seen, there are objec-
tions derived from the fact that there is no discoverable reason
for ‘preferring one of the groups to which a man belongs to
another: family, nation, class, creed, all have claims, and there
is no argument proving that ethical predominance should be
given to any one of tliem.

We are thus left witli two views as to what is objectively
right. We may sa^ : '"It is objectively right for each man to
pursue his own good'"; or we may say: "It is objectively right
to pursue the general good". Here we are still treating
"objectively right" as something indefinable, and are assuming
the possibility of deciding between the above two propositions,
not by a definition, but by argument or ethical intuition.

Let us first take the egoistic alternative, and let us not
forget that we defined "good" as "satisfaction of desire". I
may be so bene\olent that I desire tlie general good more than
I desire anything else* in tliat case, my good and the general
good coincide, and our two nrecej)ts lead to identical results.
Or, again, it may be that, tliough my strongest desires have
reference to myself, they are such as to prompt only acts con-
duci\e lo the general good; this may happen, for example, if
my strongest desire is that I should be a benevolent person or
that I should be "mariied to immortal verse". Moral systems
that are egoistic in the sense with which we are at present
concerned nec*d not be selfish in the ordinary sense. The Stoics,
for instance, held tliat each man si: >\ M seek his own virtue, but
they held tliat in so doing he would promote the general good.
They did not, however, define "good" as "satisfaction of
desire"; only certain desires had objects that were good. If
you desired riches or power or any kind of worldly prosperity,

8S

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

you were desiring what was worthless; only virtue was truly
good, and only virtue would be desired by the virtuous man.
And virtue consisted in conformity with the will of God.

We must therefore examine the possibility of dividing
desires into good, bad, and indifferent. We have already seen
that such a division is possible when “good" is defined as
“satisfaction of desire”, since some kinds of desires are corn-
possible and others are not. But a division made in this way is
derivative, and considers desires only as means. The Stoic
ethic requires that we should consider some desires intrinsically
bad and others intrinsically good, or rather that we should
consider acts inspired by certain desires intrinsically wrong and
acts inspired by certain others intrinsically right K.g. we might
say: Acts inspired by hate are wrong and acts inspired by love
are right. We are supposing this view to be held, not because
of the consequences of such acts, but because of their intrinsic
quality; and we are supposing it to be held in virtue of an
ethical intuition.

My objection to this view would be that, in fact, we prefer
love to hate because it leads to a greater total satisfaction of
desire, and that, when tabu and superstition are discarded, what
remains in the way of rules apparently derived from ethical
intuition is completely deducible from the one principle that it
is objectively right to pursue tlie general good, and that this
one principle may, therefore, be accepted as a substitute for
many subordinate intuitions.

This, however, does not dispose of the view that, in deciding
what IS objectively right, certain desires are more relevant than
others. P.sychologically, I am bound to pursue my own good,
that is to say, 1 shall always act from desire, and the desire is
necessarily mine. When we confront the two propositions:
(l) I shall pursue my own good, (2) I ought to pursue the
general good; it is clear that the second proposition has no
practical importance unless there are ways of causing me to
desire the general good, or at least to act in ways tliat promote

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MORAL OBLIGATION

it. The latter is a question of harmqpy between public and
private interests; it is promote (or should be) by the criminal
law, the economic system, and the bestowal of praise and
blame. But if I desire the general good on its own account,
that produces a harmony between my good and the general
good independently of the social system; it may therefore be
called a “good” desire. And generally, those desires that, by
their intrinsic nature and not only in virtue of the social system,
clause me to act for the general good, may be called “good”
desires, or perhaps better “right” desires. Such desires, accord-
ingly, deserve more moral respect than those that run counter
to the general interests of tlie community.

When, in the endeavour to formulate an ethical philosophy,
we ask ourselves what kinds of acts are objectively right, we
shall, whether wc know it or not, be influenced b}' our desires,
but probably not by all of them, or at any rate not by all of
them equally. Wc shall realize that general rules are what we
are seeking, and that the aims of moral action in general must
contain no special reference to ourselves. That every man
should pursue his own interest is a logically possible view, but
that everybody .should punsue Mr. A’s interest would be a
preposterous theory, unless Mr. A were an absolute monarch
or an incarnate Buddha or something of the kind, in which case
the general rule could be enunciated without mentioning Mr. A
by name. “We all ought to serve the King” is a maxim that
might be accepted in the armed si rvices ; but if A is the king,
it would be misleaduig to say “We all ought to serv'e A”,
because A might abdicate, and our duty would then be to his
successor. We have thus a first principle as to rules of objective
rightness; it must be possible to enunciate them without
mentioning any individual.

We might, without infringing this rule, make distinctions
among different classes of individuals. The commonest dis-
tinction, in ethical philosophy, would be between virtuous men
and sinners. Many theologians have held that justice is a good

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

per se^ and that, on this account, the good will inherit eternal
bliss while the wicked will suffer eternal torture. In this ter-
restrial life, it is our duty — so these theologians have held —
to imitate the Divine decrees as far as we can, by conferring
rewards upon the good and punishments upon the wicked —
punishments of which tlie purpose is not wholly deterrent or
reformatory, but in part purely retributive. This view is much
less common now than in former times: most men, now-a-days,
regard the criminal law as having the prevention of crime for
its purpose, and the belief in hell has been abandoned or
grown dim. But it remains a logically possible view that we
ought to love some kinds of men and hate other kinds, in the
absolute sense that the satisfaction of tlie desires of those whom
we are to hate is to be reckoned an evil, and the thwarting of
their desires is to be reckoned a good. What is there to be said
against this view.?

There is, to begin with, a prudential argument, which, how-
ever, is inadequate and somewhat superficial. It may urged
that hate generates hate, and that a world in which hate is
encouraged will be so full of strife that nobody will be able to
enjoy a good life. This contention is inadequate if the class of
men to be hated is small and powerless, for example, if it
consists of those who have committed some rare crime, say
parricide. It is also superficial, since the good man will not
shrink from virtuous actions merely on the ground that they
will bring discomfort, unless he is already convinced tliat the
opposite ought to be the aim of virtuous action.

When we look for some more cogent refutation, we may find
one which is intellectual or one which has its basis in our
emotions. Intellectually, we may argue that "sin" is a mistaken
conception, since every man’s acts are determined by his cir-
cumstances, over which he has only very partial control. (I
shall examine this contention in the next chapter. ) Emotionally,
we may find in ourselves either a negative feeling of impar-
tiality or a positive feeling of universal benevolence; either of

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MORAL OBLIGATION

these, if strongly felt, will prevent us from adopting an ethic
which divides mankind into sheep and goats. But neither can
be frofved cogent in arguments with a man whose emotions are
different.

It is now time to sum up the conclusions suggested by the
above somewhat discursive discussions.

There is a conccjjt of “subjective rightness" which is clear
and definite: an act is “subjectively right" if the agent has
Rewards it an emotion of approval, and “.subjectively wrong" if
he has an emotion of disapproval. But if we say “a man ought
t" do what, for him, is subjectively right”, we find ourselves
committed to intolerable paradoxes. We are thus driven to seek
a concept of “objective rightness", which sliall be valid for all
men, and shall enable us to arrive at universal moral rules. We
may say that tlieie is such a concept, that it is indefinable, and
that we have a faculty of ethical intuition enabling us to say
that acts of such-and-such kinds are objectively right, while
acts of opposite kinds are objectively wrong. If we say this, we
caimot be lefuted, but we caratot prove that we are right if we
have to argue with a man who denies ethical intuition or has
intuitions differing fioin ours. When we examine the causes of
what are said to be ethical intuitions, we find that they are to
be found mainly in the emotions of praise or blame felt in our
social environment, but partly also in our own emotions of love
or hate, dominance or submission, and so on. Differences as to
moral rules have their source partly in differences as to matters
of fact (for instance, as to the jwssibilit}' of witchcraft), but
partly also in emotional differences between different indivi-
duals or communities. It seems therefore, that there is no
reason to assume such a thing as “moral intuition”, and that when
I say that an act is "objectively right” I am really expressing an
emotion, though grammatically I setiii to be making an assertion.

It follows that there is nothing truly objective in the supposed
concept of “objective rightness", except in so far as the desires
of different men coincide.

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When I say: "A right act is one which aims at the greatest
possible satisfaction of the desires of sentient beings”, I may
be giving a purely verbal definition of “right”, but I certainly
imply something more than this. I imply (l) that I feel an
emotion of approval towards such acts, (2) that I have an
emotion of either impartiality or benevolence or both, which
makes me unwilling to value the good of one man more than an
equal good enjoyed by another, (s) that my view is (me which
could be held by all men, which would not be the case if, for
instance, I proclaimed my own good to be the summwn bonum,
and finally (4) that I should wish my view to be held by all
men.

It follows that ethical argument, when it is not merely as to
the best means to a given end, differs from scientific argument
in being addressed to the emotions, however it may disguise
itself by use of the indicative mood. It must not be supposed
that, on this accoimt, ethical argument is impossible; it is as
easy, if not easier, to influence emotions by argument as to
influence intellectual convictions. The difficulty that will be felt
is that, in intellectual argument, there is supposed to be a
standard of impersonal truth to which we are appealing, while
in ethics, on the abo\e view, there appears to be no such
standard. This difficulty is real and profound. I shall consider
its scope in a later chapter.

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CHAPTER VII

Sin

THE sense of sin has been one of the dominant psycliological
facts in history, and is still at the present day of great impor-
tance in the mental life of a large proportion of mankind. But
altliough the sense of sin is easy to rcH.ognize and define, the
concept of “sin” is obscure, especially if we attempt to interpret
it in iion-theologieal terms. In this chapter I wish to consider
the sense of sin psychologically and historically, and then to
examine whether there is any non-theological concept in terms
of which this emotion can be rationalized.

Some “enlightened” person.s believe themselves to have seen
through “sin”, and to have discarded the whole complex of
beliefs and emotions witli which it is associated. But most of
these persons, if scrutinized, w ill be found to have only rejected
some prominent part of the received moral code — e.g. the
prohibition of adultery — ^but to ha\e retained, none the less, a
moral code of their own, to which they give complete adherence.
A man may, for instance, c.. a conspirator in a left-wing move-
ment in a Fascist country; in the pursuit of his public objects
he may consider himself justified in deceiving and hoodwinking
half-hearted “fellow-travellers”, in stealing from the funds of
reactionaries, in making love insincerely with a view to dis-
covering secrets, and in committing mimler when the situation
seems to demand it. He may at all times cypress himself with
a devastating moral cynicism. Yet this very man, if he is caught
and tortured wilh a view to discove. ing his confederates, may
display a heroic endurance beyond the capacity of many who
would consider him ethically vile. If he does at last give way
and betray his comrades, he is likely to feel a burning sense of

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shame which may drive him to suicide. Or to take a very
different example, a man may, like the hero of Shaw’s Doctor’s
Dilemma, be morally contemptible in all respects except where
his artistic conscience is involved, but in tliis one matter may
be capable of very painful sacrifices. I am not prepared to
maintain that to all men there are some acts that are felt as
"sin” ; I am willing to believe that there are human beings who
are utterly shameless. But I am convinced tliat they are few,
and that they are not to be found among those who most
loudly proclaim their own emancipation from moral scruples.

Most psycho-anal3'.sts make much of the sense of guilt or sin,
which many of them seem to regard as innate. I canno* agree
with them in tliis. I believe the psychological origin of tlie
sense of guilt in the yoiuig to be fear of punishment or disap-
proval by parents or whoever is in authority. If a feeling of
guilt is to result from punishment or disapproval, it is ncces-
sar}^ however, that autliority should be respected, and not
merely feared ; w'herc there is only fear, the natural reaction is
an impulse to deceit or rebellion. It is natural to young children
to respect thcii' parents, but schoolboys are less apt to respect
their teachers, with the result that only fear of punishment, not
sense of sin, restrains them from many acts of disobedience.
Disobedience, if it is to feel sinful, must be disobedience to an
authority inwardly re.spectod and acknowledged. A dog caught
stealing a leg of mutton may have this feeling if he is caught
by his master, but not if he is caught by a stranger.

The psycho-analysts however, are certainly right in tracing
the origins of a man’s sense of sin to the very early years of
childhood. In those years parental precepts are unquestioningly
accepted, but impulse is too strong for them to be always
obeyed; hence experience of disapproval is frequent and pain-
ful, and so is temptation which may be successfully resisted. In
later life the parental disapproval may come to be almost
forgotten, and yet there may still be a feeling of something
painful associated with certain kinds of acts, and this feeling

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may translate itself into the conviction that such acts are
sinful. For those who believe that sin consists in disobedience
to God the Father, the change of emotional pattern is very
slight.

However, many men who do not believe in God nevertheless
have a sense of sin. This may be merely a subconscious associa-
tion with parental disapproval, or it may be fear of the bad
opinion of a man's own herd, when the man is not a rebel
against the herd's standards. Sometimes it is the sinner's own
disapproval, cjuite independent!}^ of wliat others think, that
makes him feel wicked. This is not likely to happen except to
men who arc unusually self-reliant or have exceptional gifts. If
Columbus had abandoned the attempt to find the Indies, no one
else would have blamed him, but one can imagine that he would
have felt degraded in liis own eyes. Sir Thomas More was
removed from Oxford in his youth, on aa'ount of his determina-
tion to leani Greek in spite of the disapproval of his father and
the University authorities. No doubt if he had yielded to the
advice of his elders and betters he would liave had a sense of
sin, though everyone would have praised him.

The sense of sin has played a very important j)art in religion,
more especially the Christian religion. In the Catholic Church
it was one of the main sources of the power of the priesthood,
and did much to facilitate tlic victory of the P(»pcs in their long
struggle with the Emperors. Psychologically and doctrinally,
the sense of sin reached its acme in St. Augu'^tine. But its
origin lies far back in pre-historic times; in all tlie civilized
nations of antiquity it was already well developed. In its earlier
forms it was connected with ritual defilement and with breaches
of tabu. Among the Crreeks it was cs]>ecially emphasized by the
Orphics and by the philosophers whom they influenced. By the
Orphics, as in India, sin w^as connected with transmigration:
the sinful soul passed, after death, into the body of an animal,
but after many purgative ages at last achieved emancipation
from bondage to “the wheel of life". As Empedocles says:

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"Whenever one of the daemons, whose portion is length of
days, has sinfully polluted his hands with blood, or followed
strife and forsworn himself, lie must wander thrice ten thou-
sand years from the abodes of the blessed, being bom through-
out the time in all manners of mortal forms. . . . One of these I
now am, an exile and a wanderer from the gods, for that I put
my trust in insensate strife”.

In another fragment he says: "Ah, woe is me that the pitiless
day of death did not destroy me ere ever I did evil deeds of
devouring with my lips!” It seems probable that there "evil
deeds” consisted of munching beans and laurel leaves, for he
says: “Abstain wholly from laurel leaves”, and again:
“Wretches, utter wretches, keep your hands from beans!”
These passages illustrate the fact that sin, as originally con-
ceived, was not essentially something that injured some one
else, but merely something forbidden. This attitude persists to
our own day in much of orthodox doctrine on sexual morality.

The Christian concej>tion of sin owes more to lhc*Jcws than
to the Greeks. The Prophets attributed the Babylonian captivity
to the wrath of God. which w'as kindled by the heathen practices
that were still prevalent while Judea was independent. At first
the sin was collective and the punishment collective, but
gradually, as the Jews became accustomed to the absence of
political independence, a more individualistic view came to
prevail: it was the individual w'ho sinned, and the individual
who would be punished. For a long time punishment was
expected in this life, with the corollary that prosperity was a
proof of virtue. But during the persecution at the time of the
Maccabees it became evident that the most virtuous were, in
this life, the most unfortunate. This stimulated belief in a
future life of rewards and punishments, in which Antiochus
would suffer and his victims would triumph — a point of view
which, with appropriate modifications, passed over into the
early Church and sustained it during the persecutions.

Sin, however, is psychologically very different when imputed

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SIN

to our enemies from what it is when thought of as our own
shortcoming, for the one involves pride and the other humility.
The extreme of humility is reached in the doctrine of original
sin, of which the best exposition is to be found in St. Augustine.
Accordmg to this doctrine, Adam and Eve were created with
free will, and had tlie power of choice between good and evil.
When they ate the apple they chose evil, and in that moment
corruption entered into their souls. I'liey and all their progeny
were tlienccforth unable to choose the good by the strength of
their own unaided wills; only Divine Grace enabled the elect
to live virtuously. Divine Grace is bestowed, without any
guiding principle, upon some of those who have been baptized,
but upon no one else, with the exception of certain of the
Patriarchs and Prophets. The rest of mankind, although, since
Grace is withheld, they are fatally predestined to sin, yet,
because of their sin, are justly objects of God’s wrath, and as
such will suffer eternal perdition. St. Augustine enumerates the
.sins committed by infants at the breast, and does not shrink
from the conclusion that infants who die unbapti/ed go to hell.
Tlie elect go to heaven because God chooses to make them
the objects of His mercy: they are virtuous because they are
elect, not elect because they are viituous

This ferocious doctrine, though aarepted by Luther and
Calvin, has not, since their time, been the orthodox teaching of
the Catholic Church, and is now accepted by very few Chris-
tians, of whatever denomination. Nevertheless hell is still part
of Catholic dogma, though fewer people suffer damnation than
was formerly supposed. And hell i.s justified as the appropriate
punishment for sin.

The doctrine of original sin, according to which we all
deserve punishment because of Adam’s transgression, is one
which strikes most people at the present day as unjust, although
there are many who see no injustice when analogous doctrines
are proclaimed in politics — ^for example, when it is thought
right that German children bom since 1939 should starve

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

because their parents did not oppose the Nazis. This, however,
even by its supporters, is recognized as rough human justice,
and not of a sort to be ascribed to the Deity. The standpoint of
modern liberal theologians is well set forth by Dr. Tennant in
his book The Concept of Sin. According to him sin consists in
acts of will that are in conscious opposition to a known moral
law, the moral law being known by Revelation as God's will. It
follows that a man destitute of religion cannot sin:

'"If we press the indispensableness of the religious element in
the concept of sin, and if we adopt the psychical definition of
religion, then it will follow that persons, if any there be,
possessing no religion — who would confess, that is to say, to
entertaining no ideas of deity or of the supernatural, and to
feeling no religious sentiment of any sort --cannot be accounted
sinners at all, in the sense in which we agree to use that term,
however morally e\i1, even from their own point of view, may
be their lives.'’^

It is difficult to know exactly ^vhat is meant by this Statement,
owing to the qualifications with which it is introduced. By the
"psychical’' definition of religion the author means, as he has
previously explained, whatev^er a man accepts in the way of
religion, and not only what Christians regard as true religion.
But it is not clear what is meant by "feeling no religious senti-
ment of any sort". 1 mj^self have "sentiments"- -emotions and
moral convictions— which are apt to be associated with Chris-
tian beliefs, but I have no "ideas of deity or of the super-
natural". I am not (juite sure, therefore, whether, in Dr.
Tennant's view, I am or am not capable of "sin". Nor am I sure
whether, in my own view, there is a valid concept deserving to
be called "sin". 1 know that certain acts, if I perform them, fill
me with shame. I know that I find cruelty detestable and that
I wish it did not exist; I know that failure to use to the full
such talents as I may possess would feel to me like treachery to
an ideal. But I arn by no means certain how to rationalize these

^ Op. cit., p. 21G,

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SIN

feelings, nor whether, if I succeeded in rationalizing them, the
result would afford a definition of "sin”.

If “sin” means "disobedience to the known will of God",
then clearly sin is impossible for those who do not believe in
God or do not think tliat they know His will. But if "sin”
means "disobedience to tlie voice of conscience”, then it can
exist independently of theological beliefs. If it means only this,
however, it lacks some properties commonly associated with the
word "sin”. Sin is usually thought of as dc.serving punishment,
not only as a deterrent or as an incentive to reform, but on
grounds of abstract justice. The sufferings of hell, theologians
assure us, do not make tortured souls morally better; on the
contrary, they persist in sin through all eternity, and have no
power to do otherwise. The belief in "sin” as something
meriting the purely retributive infliction of pain is one which
cannot be reconciled with any ethic at all analogous to that
which I have been maintainuig, though it has been advocated
mdepcndently of theolog}, for Instance in G. E. Moore’s
Principia Kthica. When retribution for its own sake is net
tliouglit a good, the concepts of "justice” and "punishment”
need re-interpretation.

"Justice”, in its legalistic interpretatic>n, might be taken to
mean "reward according 1o desert”. But when retributive
punishment for its own sake is no longer advocated, this can
only mean "reward and piuiishmenr on the system most likely
to promote socially desirable conduct”. It might happen, on
occasion, that a man who expected pimishment would undergo
a change of heart if he were given a free pardon; in that case,
it would be right to pardon him. It might also happen tliat a
man who has acted in a socially desirable manner might have
set an example which ought not ti' bf' followed in apparently
similar cases, atid on tins aca>unt it might be proper to punish
him. (Nelson's blind eye.) In short, rewards and punishments
should be awarded according to the desirability of their social
effects, and not according to some supposed absolute standard of

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

merit or demerit. No 4oubt it will, as a rule, be wise to reward
those whose conduct is socially desirable and punish those
whose conduct is harmful, but exceptions are conceivable and
are likely actually to occur from time to time. Such a conception
of "justice" as underlies the belief in heaven and hell is not
defensible if "right” conduct is that which promotes the
satisfaction of desire.

The conception of "sin" is closely connected with the belief
in free will, tor, if our actions are determined by causes over
which we have no control, retributive punishment can have no
justification. I think the ethical importance of free will is some-
times exaggerated, but it cannot be denied that the question is
relevant in relation to "sin”, and something must therefore be
said about it.

"Free will” must be taken to mean that a volition is not
always, or not necessarily, the result of previous causes. But
the word "cause” has not as clear a meaning as could be
wished The first step towards clarity is to substitute "causal
law” for "cause”. We shall say that an event is "drtermined”
by previous events if there is a law by means of which it can be
inferred if a sufficient number of previous events are known.
We can predict the movements of tlu* planets because they
follow from the law of gravitation. Sometimes human actions
are equally predictable; it may be that Mr. So-and-So, on
meeting a stranger, nev'er fails to mention his acquaintance
with Lord Such-and-such. But as a general rule we are not able
to predict with any accuracy what people will do. This may be
only from inadequate knowledge of tlie relevant laws, or it
may be because there are no laws that invariably connect a
man’s actions with his past and present circumstances. The
latter possibility, whith is that of free will, is always unhesi-
tatingly rejected except when people are thinking about the
free-will problem. No one says: It is useless to punish theft,
because perhaps people henceforth will like punishment. No
one says: It is useless to address a letter, because the postman,

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SIN

having free will, may decide to deliver it somewhere else. No
one says: It is useless to offer wages for work that you wish
done, because people may prefer starvation. If free will were
common, all social organization would be impossible, since
there would be no way of influencing men’s actions.

While, therefore, as a pbilosoplier I hold the principle of
universal causation to be open to question, as a common-sense
individual I hold that it is an indispensable postulate in the
conduct of affairs. For practical purposes we must assume that
our volitions have causes, and our ethics must be compatible
with this assumption.

Praise and blame, rewards and punishments, and the whole
apparatus of the criminal law, are rational on the deterministic
hypothesis, but not on the hypothesis of free will, for they are
all mechanisms designed to cause volitions that are in harmony
with the interests of the community, or what are believed to be
its interests. But the conception of “sm” is only rational on
the assumption of free will, for, on the deterministic hypothesis,
when a man does something that the community would wish
him not to do, that is because the community has not provided
adequate motives to cause him not to do it, or perhaps could
not have provided adequate motives. We all recognize this
second possibility in the case of insanity: a homicidal lunatic
would not be deterred from murder even if he were certain to
be hanged for it, and therefore it is useless to hang him. But
sane people, when they commit a murder, usually do so in the
hope of escaping detec’tion, and it is this fact that makes it
worth while to punish them when they are detected. Murder is
punished, not because it is a sin and it is good that sinners
should suffer, but because the community wishes to prevent it,
and fear of punishment causes most people to abstain from it.
This is completely compatible with the deterministic h3'po-
thesis, and completely incompatible with the hypothesis of
free will.

I conclude that free will is not essential to any rational ethic,
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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

but only to the vindictive ethic that justifies hell and holds that
“sin” should be punished regardless of any good that purtish-
racnt may do. I conclude also that “sin”, except in the sense of
conduct towards which die agent, or the community, feels an
emotion of disapproval, is a mistaken concept, calculated to
promote needless cruelty and vindictiveness when it is others
that are thought to sin, and a morbid self-abasement when it is
ourselves whom we condemn.

But it must not be supposed that, in rejecting the concept of
“sin”, we are maintaining that there is no difi'erence between
right and wrong actions. “Right” actions are those that it is
useful to praise, “wrong” actions are those that it is useful to
blame. Praise and blame remain as powerful incentives, "ending
to promote conduct which serves the general interest. Rewards
and punishments also remain. But with regard to punishment
ide rejection of “sin” makes a difference that has some practical
anportance, for on the view whkh I advocate the puni.Nliment is
rlways per se an evil, and is onlv justified by its deterrent or
reformative effect. If it were possible to keej) the public per-
suaded tliat burglars go to prison, while in fact they are made
happy in some remote Soutli Sea island, that would be better
than punishment; the only objection to the .scheme is that it
would inevitably leak out sooner or later, and then there would
be a general outbreak of burglary.

What applies to punishment applies also to blame. The fear
of being blamed is a very pow'erful deterrent, but actual blame,
when tlie blameworthy action has been performed, is, as a rule,
painful without being morally helpful. The person blamed is
likely to become sullen and defiant, to despair of the good
opinion of the community, and to acquiesce in the position of
an Ishmael. This result is especially probable when it is not an
individual, but a large group, that is blamed. After the first
world war tlie victors told tlic Germans that the guilt was
wholly Germany’s, and even forced them to sign a document
by which they pretended to acknowledge their sole culpability.

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SIN

After the second world war Montgomery issued a proclama-
tion telling German parents to explain to their children that
British soldiers could not smile at them because of tlie wicked-
ness of their fathers and mothers. This was, on both occasions,
bad psychology and bad politics, of a sort that is encouraged by
belief in the doctrine of “sin”. We are all what our circum-
stances have made us, and if that is unsatisfactory to our
neighbours, it is for them to find ways of improving us. It is
\f:ry seldom that moral reprobation is the best way of achieving
this object.

99

CHAPTER VIII

Kthical Controversy

THE question I wish to discuss in this chapter is: when two
individuals, or two groups, dilfer as to what is desirable, aye
there any means, and if so what, of showing that one party is
in the right? To avoid arousing active partisan feeling, let us
take some dead issue, for example slavery. For a long time
slavery was accepted without question; then there was a con-
troversy lasting about a hundred years; then it was decided
that the world was better without slavery. If we put ourselves
back, in imagination, into the period of controversy, what has
ethics to say as to how we ought to have made up our minds?

In a practical political issue there are three kinds of dispute
that may be involved. First: the dispute ma}’^ be whylly as to
means, and there may be no disagreement as to ends. Secondly:
it may be held by one party that acts of certain kinds are
inherently wicked, quite independently of their consequences,
while the other party does not admit any such inherent wicked-
ness. Thirdly: there may be a genuine difference as to the ends
at which human actions should aim. In most actual political
disputes these three grounds of disagreement are all present,
but in a theoretical discussion it is important to keep them
apart.

Political disagreements are often genuinely as to means, and
still more often apparently so. Opinions for or against the gold
standard are, as a rule, genuinely based on estimates of the
merit or demerit of different currency systems considered as
means. But when we come to such a question as (say) the
40-hour week, we find that men's views as to means depend
upon what ends they value. Employers will say that production

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ETHICAL CONTROVERSY

will be disastrously lowered by a reduction in the number of
working hours, while statisticians who are friendly to labour
will maintain that increased efficiency will prevent a diminution
of output. It is obvious that there must be a certain number of
hours per day which will produce the maximum output, and
that this number must be greater than 0 and less than Si (since
a man must sleep and eat). In the hey-day of capitalism,
employers thought 16 hours a day reasonable, but obviously
this was an over-estimate. If labour were to become as omni-
potent as capital was in the early nineteenth century, too low a
figure would probably be put forward with equal confidence.
I'his illustrates the rule that controversies as to matters of fact
arc very often due to an absence of disinterestedness in those
who pretend to be ascertaining tlie facts. But where this
happens it is because one side, or both, has or have aims that
camiot be avowed, since the general public has an aim which
both sides have to j)rofcss to be pursuing. From the point of
view of the general public, which listens in bewilderment to the
rival experts, the dispute is genuinely as to means, not as to
ends.

A dispute as to means is one which raises no ethical issue,
but is to be decided, if it can be decided at all, on purely scien-
tific grounds. In the days when slavery was a controversial
issue, its opponents argued that it w’as a wasteful method of
production, while its advocati's denied this. In fact its whole-
hearted opponents would not have become favourable to it if it
had been shown to be not wasteful, and its whole-hearted
advocates would not Iia\e turned against it if it had been
shown to be wasteful. The argument on each side was addressed
to the undecided general public, which w,mtcd cotton goods to
be cheap, but cared little about slave labour on Southern
plantations or child labour in I.^c.i.shire factories. For those to'
whom the issue of fact was decisive, slavery and child labour
were not ethical (questions.

The realization that disputes as to means are not ethical

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disputes removes from Ae sphere of ethics a very large part of
the practical questions as to which men disagree.

I come now to the second ground of dispute, namely, where
one party, but not the other, considers acts of certain kinds
inherently wicked, quite apart from their consequences. Slavery
may be condemned on this ground by a believer in the rights of
man, or by a person who agrees with Kant in holding that
every individual human being should be an end in himself. But
the issue is clearer where some definite tabu is involved. Hindus
think it wicked to kill a cow, even when it is in great pain.
Humanitarian English people think it cruel to keep the exjw
alive in such circumstances. Antiochus IV thought it desirable
that all his subjects should be hellenized and cured of their
native customs, but the Jews, or at least the more heroic among
them, were willing to die rather than cat pork or abandon
circumcision. The Amish in Penn.sylvania have a moral abhor-
rence of buttons, and will suffer persecution sooner than send
their children to State schools.

What can argument effect in such a case? I do not think that
it can effect anything directly, there is no way of proving that
buttons are not immoral. But given an open mind and the
leisure required for a large survey, there is an argument which,
while not logically compulsive, ought to carry weight with a
candid inquirer. The kind of argument I have in mind is the
kind by which, in earlier chapters, I tried to show that good
and bad, rather than right and wrong, arc the fundamental
concepts of ethics, “right” acts being those calculated to have
good effects, and "wrong” acts those calculated to have bad
effects. If, by a long course of anthropology and history, you
have brought an Amish to admit this, you can then ask him:
“What harm do buttons do?” If he can show you that they do
harm, you will have to adopt his opinion; if not, he will have
to adopt yours.

Tliere is, however, a proviso to be made as regards imme-
diate judgments of right and wrong. Wlien an act, however

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ETHICAL CONTROVERSY

innocent in itself, inspires a man with genuine emotions of
horror, he cannot be happy if he has to see it being performed.
If you had a guest who thought it wicked to play cards on
Sunday, while the rest of the company had no such scruple, you
would be guilty of unkindness if you ignored his feelings. In
lliis way what is thought to be right or wrong may really
become right or wrong (as the case may be) so long as the
belief persists. This docs not show that the belief is true, but
Qierely that it generates desires and aversions whicli are data
in deciding what is good in the sense of satisfying desire. In
fact, men's feelings of admiration or horror in regard to a
certain kind of act are, while they persist, often among the
most important factors in deciding whether that kind of act is
right or wrong.

The cases in whicli an ethical controversy is most difficult to
decide on rational grounds are those where there is a genuine
differenc'c as to ends. Such cases are less frequent than appears
at first sight. Russian aristocrats, until the middle of the nine-
teenth century, tend(*d to regard their serfs as of no account,
not so much because they had a different conception of the
good from that of the opponents of serfdom, as because they
believed that serfs did not have the same rapacity for emotion
as their masters. Turgenev's Sportsman's Sketches, with all the
art of a great novelist, gave a sympathetic portrait of the serfs'
joys and sorrows, thereb) arousing sensibility a la Rousseau in
liberal-minded landowners. Uncle Toni's Cabin performed the
same service for slaves in the United Stales. In both countries,
when men could no longer deny that the oppressed had the
same capacity for joy and sorrow as their oppressors, the
oppressive institution was abolished. The controversy between
its enemies and its defenders was not therefore, really a con-
troversy as to ends, but as to the facts oi* human beings'
emotions.

Apart from arguments as to the sensibilities of slaves, there
are two grounds on which slavery may be defended: ( 1 ) tliat it

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is essential to civilization; (2) that slaves don’t count, i.e. that
they are mere means, and their experiences are neither good
nor bad. Of these only the second involves an argument as to
ends. The first has a measure of truth, and in the past had
much more. The Egyptian and Babylonian priests who developed
writing and the rudiments of mathematics and astronomy
obtained their leisure by the employment of slaves, and in
those days, when one man’s labour produced only a little more
than the necessaries required to keep him and his children alive,
there would have been no leisure if there had not been privi-
leged classes and classes condemned to servile toil. The young
men in Plato’s dialogues show a devotion to philosophy which
depends upon financi?! security and a smoothly running house-
hold of slaves. Lord Melbourne, who.se conversation at
Holland House, as recorded by Greville, is still fascinating in
its breadth of culture, and who endured with such civilized
fortitude the Byronic extravagances of his wife, derived the
income which made his merits pos.sible from the torture of
children in coal mines. We must therefore admit th^t slavery
and social injustice have, in the past, served a useful purpose in
the development of civilization. I shall not consider how far
this is still the case as 1 do not wish to embark upon political
controversy.

The second ground, of those mentioned above, on which
slavery may be defended, namely that slaves are mere means,
raises issues that are ethically more fundamental than those
that we have been considering hitherto. They are essentially
the same as the issues that we considered in Chapter V, on
partial and general goods. What considerations can be brought
to bear upon a man who announces that he will only concern
himself with the good of some group, or even of himself alone?
TTie egoist, tltc 'nationalist, the man who cares only for his own
class or for the adherents of his own creed, all have limited
sympathies. Is there anything to be said which can induce them
to abandon their partiality, in practice if not in theory?

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It is clear that we come up here against the ancient question
of the harmony of private and public interests. Every man, we
have agreed, will necessarily pursue the satisfaction of his own
desires; he will therefore only act in a manner to promote the
general good if his own desires lead to acts that have this
result. They may have this result because he desires the general
good, or because the social system is such that his selfish inter-
ests are best served by acts that are useful to the public. I do
nqt believe that a complete harmony of private and public
interests is possible, and, where it is not possible, I fear that
ethical argument fails. But 1 think there is much less dis-
harmony than is commonly supposed.

Let us take again the case of slavery. In a community where
slaves are numerous, there is a perpetual fear of a servile
insurrection, and such insurrections, when tliey conic, are apt
to be very terrible. Fear makes slave-owners cruel, and to
many among them the cruelty must he distasteful. Sympathy
with suffering, especially with physical suffering, is to some
extent a natural impulse: cliildren are apt to cry when tliey
hear their brothers or sisters crying. This natural impulse has
to be curbed by slave-owners, and when curbed it easily passes
into its opposite, producing an impulse to cruelty for its own
sake. But impulses of this kind are not luiinixed, and their
satisfaction does not bring contentment. And the more they
are indulged, the more fear is intensified. In such a life there
can be no inward peace. Men who accept and practise currently
licfiised forms of social injustice may despise the tranquillity of
the sage and the saint, but they despise it from ignorance. I do
not doubt that the many Christian saints who renounced the
world and embraced po\erty enjoyed more personal happiness
than they could have experienced if they had retained their
possessions. And certainly Socrates was a happy man down to
the very moment of his death.

Let us take another illustration, more germane to current
affairs than that of slavery — I mean, nationalism. The world at

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the present moment (1946) is full of angry and suspicious
groups: Jews and Arabs, Hindus and Moslems, Yugoslavs and
Italians, Russians and Anglo-Americans, not to mention the
submerged Germans and Japanese. Each of these groups
believes its interests to be incompatible with those of a group
to which it is hostile, and has no moral scruples in pursuing
what it holds to be its own interests at no matter what cost to
its enemies. All statesmen realize that if tliis attitude persists the
outcome must be another world war, fought with atomic
bombs, and involving all the combatants in a common ruin.
Zionists will be exterminated and their works in the Promised
Land destroyed; Arabs will survive only in small numbers in
the desert. Hindus and Moslems alike will see their sacred
cities destroyed, their populations reduced by war and famine
to a small fracihm of their present numbers, and their fertile
lands reverting to wilderness. If there is no agreement about
Trieste, Trieste, in common w^ith other cities, will cease to
exist. If Russia and the Western democrac'ies cannot compose
their differences peaceably, neither communism nor ^lemocratic
capitalism will survive, but only roving bands of anarchic
brigands. This is not what is desired by any of the wrangling
groups, but it is what will inevitably result if they are
incapable of pcrcei\ ing to how large an extent the true interests
of each group ai e bound up with the general good as opposed
to the illusory hope of their private and particular victory.

The above considerations illustrate the fact that, in political
arguments, it is seldom nec'essary to appeal to ethical con-
siderations, since enlightened self-interest usually affords a
sufficient motive for action in accordance with the general good.
But although in general (not always) the appeal to self-
interest is valid, it is often far less effective than an appeal to
altruistic motives. Hatred, envy, and contempt blind men to
their own interests; on the other hand, sympathy and pity
prompt actions useful to others, even if no advantage to self is
expected. Generous emotions are more likely than calculated

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ETHICAL CONTROVERSY

selfishness to lead to the very actions which calculated selfishness
would recommend if the calculation were correct, but so long
as men’s hearts are cold they are likely to remain blind to the
fact that co-operation is usually more advantageous to both
parties than competition.

V^'heu there is in fact a genuine conflict between the total
desires of one man and the total desires of another — where,
that is to say, two states of affairs are possible, and one will be
more pleasing to A, while the otlier will be more pleasing to
B — it does not seem possible, so long as we confine ourselves
to the two individuals, to advocate any argument in favour of
the one as against the other. But this does not mean quite
what it might seem to mean, since both A and B have to take
account of tlie desires of others. If A would like to steal B’s
money, his wish is likely to be counteracted by the desire to
escape censure and punishment. Each individual might profit by
theft, provided he were the onlj thief; but everybody profits
by other people’s abstinence from theft. In such cases there is a
general interest which i.s opposed to what would be the interest
of individuals if the general interest could not make itself felt.
Law and government are institutions by which it is sought to
bring the general interest to bear on the individual; so is
public o])inion in the form of praise and blame. The coiusequence
is that, where the police are efficient, the great majority of the
population find it advantageous to abstain from crime. But in
the relations between sovereign States, where there is no law
and no government, the arguments against national self-seeking
at the expense of the lest of tlie world, though valid, arc not
sufficiently obvious to be undenstood either by statesmen or by
large sections of the population.

'^\^lat a man will consider to constitute his happiness depends
upon his passions, ancj these in turn depend upon his education
and social circumstances as well as upon his congenital endow-
ment. It is obvious t^at the attention of the young can be
directed to matters in which their Interests harmonize with

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

those of Others, or to matters in which there is conflic||
present, in most parts of the world, schools teach co-opeil^jj^n
within the nation but competition elsewhere; this practj^g jg

bringing our era to a disastrous end, and will probably pj-gvent
most of those now in school from reaching middle ^gg jj.
would be just as easy to teach loyalty to mankind, and jjjg
basis of this sentiment to build an international State, means
of which the human race could attain a level of happir,ggg

well-being far surpassing anything hitherto achieved/ jjq
G reat Power would dream of accepting such a of

intellectual disarmament, though all know that tlie for

continuing the present policy is universal dcstructiou

I will conclude this chapter by summarizing preufoyg argu-
ments against what may be called the Nietzscfjg^j^ view
namely, that only a {>cction of mankind are to be considered as
•ends, while the rest arc merely means. In the pj^ce, as
soon as tlie section is defined, the theory w'ill beca j^g foaa’ept-
able to all who do not belong to it; it cannot be/gjjpgg^g^j foj.
instance, that men who are not white should Ojmk that the

world exists for the exclusive benefit of white iiLp j^^jg
white men retain supremacy, men of other preach

the Rights of Man, and say that all men are jjjgj^

of some other ct)lour have some prospect of/ success as the
Japanese believed themselves to have after pp^rl Harbour
they W'ill become converts to the Nietzsi.t^gjy^ philosophy,
merely substituting “yellow” for “white”-, _a d^ange of no
logical impt)rtance. They will then in thein tu^n be defeated
and claims will be made on behalf of the men or the

black men. I even once met a Mexican Mar^jjj^^ eontended
that the essential message of Marx was tl/,g supremacy of the
Red man, because none of the Red men iUj Mexico were capi-
talists. It is obvious* that this doctrine of- fog supremacy of a
section of mankind can only breed endles,, g^dfe, with periodic
changes as to which group is to be doUpinant. At each stage
there will have to be oppression and Cruelty to preserve the

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ETHICAL CONTROVERSY

supremaw of the momentary Lords of the World. At all times
there win be fear of insurrection, police ’tyranny, and indignant
suffering for large sections of mankind. The rulers will not be
happy, because they will fear assas.sination or rebellion. Thf
dominant race will have to clo.se their hearts to sympathy and
their minds to facts. In the end they will perish in a bloody
rebellion. No man would choose such a life with his eyes open.
The Nietzschean theory is a dream, but in practice it is a
nightmare.

109

CHAPTER IX

Is there Ethical Knowledge?

WE come now at last to the problem to which all our previous
ethical discussions have been leading. The question may be put
in dry technical language, or in language showing that it
involves issues of great emotional importance. Let us begin
with the latter.

If we say "cruelty is wrong”, or "you ought to love your
neighbour as yourself”, are we saying something which has
impersonal truth or falsehood, or are we merely expressing our
own preferences? If we say "pleasure is good and pain is bad”,
are we making a statement, or are we merely expressing an
emotion which would be more correctly expressed in a different
grammatical form, say "Hurrah for pleasure, and^way dull
care”? When men dispute or go to war about a political issue,
is there any sense m which one side is more in the right than
the other, or is there merely a trial of strength? What is meant,
if anything, by saying that a world in which human beings are
happy is better than one in which thej' are unhappy? I, for one,
find it intolerable to suppose that when I say "cruelty is bad”
I am merely saying "I dislike cruelty”, or something equally
subjective. What I want to discuss is whether there is anything
in ethics that is not, in the last analysis, subjective.

To put the same problem in more technical language: When
we examine wh.at purport to be ethical statements, we find tliat
they differ from statements asserting matters of fact by the
presence of one or both of two terms, "ought” and "good”, or
their synonyms. Are these terms, or equivalents of them, part
of any minimum vocabulary of ethics? Or are they definable in
terms of desires and emotions and feelings? And, if so, do they

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IS THERE ETHICAL KNOWLEDGE?

have essential reference to the desires and emotions and
feelings of the person using the words, or have they a reference
to the general desires and emotions and feelings of mankind?
There are words such as "I", "now", which have a

different meaning for each different person wlio uses them, or
even on each different occasion when they are used. Such words
1 call "egocentric". Our question is: Are ethical terms ego-
centric?

In discussing the above questions I shall repeat in abbre-
viated form arguments which have occurred in earlier chapters,
but this time we must arrive at decisions, and not, as before,
leave many (juestioiis open.

One possible theory is that "ought" is indefinable, and that
we know by ethical intuition one or more propositions about
the kinds of acts that we ought, or ought not, to perform.
There is no logical objection to this theory, and I am not pre-
pared to reject it decisively. It has, however, a grave drawback,
namely, that there is nc^ general agreement as to what sorts of
acts ought to be performed, and that the theory affords no
means of deciding who is in the right where there is disagree-
ment. It thus becomes, in practice though not in theory, an
egocentric doctrine. If A says "you ouglit to do this" and B
says "No, you ought to do that", }ou only know that tliese are
their opinions, and you have no means of knowing which, if
either, is right. You can only escape from this conclusion by
saying dogmatically: "Whenever there is a dispute as to what
ought to be done, I am in the right, and those who disagree
with me are mistaken". But as those who disagree will make a
similar claim, ethical controversy will become merely a clash of
rival dogmas. These considerations lead us to abandon "ought"
as the fundamental ethical term. Let us sec whether we can do
any better w^ith the concept "good".

Wc shall call something "good" if it has value on its own
account, independently of its effects. Perhaps, since the term
"good" is ambiguous, we shall do well to substitute the term

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

"intrinsic value". Thus the theory that we are now to examine
is the theory that there is an indefinable which we are calling
"intrinsic value", and that we know, by a different kind of
ethical intuition from that considered in connection with
"ought", that certain kinds of things possess intrinsic value.
The term has a negative, to which we will give the name
"disvaluc". A possible ethical intuition of the sort appropriate
to our present theory would be; "Pleasure has intrinsic value,
and pain has intrinsic disvaluc". shall now define "ougHt"
in terms of intrinsic value: an act "ought" to be performed if, of
those that are possible, it is the one having the most intrinsic
value. To this definition we must add the principle: "The act
having most intrinsic value is the one likely to produce the
greatest balance of intrinsic value over intrinsic disvalue, or
the smallest balance of intrinsic disvalue over intrinsic value".
An intrinsic value and an intrinsic disvalue are defined as equal
when the two together hav'e zero intrinsic value.

This theory, like its predecessor, is not logically refutable. It
has the advantage, over the theory which makcis "ought"
fundamental, that there are much fewer disagreements as to
what has inti'insic value than as to w^hat ought to be done. And
when we examine disagreements as to what ought to be done,
we find, usuall}, though perhaps not always, that they are
derived from disagreements as to the effects of actions. A
savage may believe that infringing a tabu causes death; some
Sabbatarians believe that working on Sunday leads to defeat in
war. Such considerations suggest that moral rules are really
based on an estimate of consequences even when they seem to
be absolute. And if we judge tlie morality of an act by its con-
sequences, we seem driven to adopt some such definition of
"ought" as that suggested at tlie end of the last paragraph.
Our present theory is, therefore, a definite improvement upon
the theory which makes "ought" indefinable.

There are, however, still objections, some analogous to the
former ones, and some of a new kind. Although there is more

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IS THERE ETHICAL KNOWLEDGE?

agreement as to intrinsic value than as to rules of conduct,
there are still some disagreements thai are serious. One of
these is as to vindictive punishment. Is there intrinsic value in
inflicting pain upon those whose acts have intrinsic disvalue.!*
Believers in hell must answer in the affirmative, and so must
all those who believe that the purpose of the criminal law should
not be merely deterrent and reformatory. Some stem moralists
have maintained that pleasure has no intrinsic value, but I do
noC think they were quite sincere in this, as they maintained at
the same time that the virtuous will be happy in heaven. The
question of vindictive punishment is more serious, because, as
in the case of disagreement about moral rules, there is no way
in which the matter can be argued: if you think it good and I
think it bad, neither of us can advance any reasons whatever in
support of our belief.

There is a consideration of quite another kind, wliich, while
not conclusive, tends to throw doubt on the view that intrinsic
value is indefinable. When we examine the things to which we
are inclined to attach intrinsic value, w’e find that they are all
things that are desired or enjoyed. It is difficult to believe that
anything would have value in a universe devoid of sentience.
This suggests that “intrinsic value” may be definable in terms
of desire or pleasure or both.

If we say “pleasure is good and pain is bad”, do we mean
anything more than “we like pleasure and dislike pain”.'' It
seems as if we must mean something more than this, but this is
certainly a part of what we mean. We cannot attribute intrinsic
value to everything that is desired. Decause desires conflict, for
instance in a war, where each side desires its own victory. We
could perhaps evade this difficulty by saying that only states of
mind have intruisic value. In that case, if A and B compete for
something which only one of them can have, we* shall say that
there is intrinsic value in the pleasure of the victor, whichever
he may be. There is now nothing which one of the two judges
to have intrinsic value, while the other judges that the same

M

ns

HUMAK SOCIETY IN ETHICS ANP POLITICS

thing has intrinsic disvalue. A may admit that the pleasure
which B would derive from victory would have intrinsic value,
but may argue that B’s victory is nevertheless to be prevented
if possible, on account of its effects. Thus we shall now consider
the definition: “Intrinsic value” means "the property of being
a state of mind desired by the person who experiences it”.
This differs very little from the view that the good is pleasure.
We come even nearer to the good as pleasure if we substitute
“enjoyed” for “desired” in the above definition.

I do not tliink the statement “the good is pleasure” is quite
correct, but I think that most of the difficulties of ethics are the
same when this statement is adopted as when we adopt one
which seems to me more exact I shall, therefore, for the sake
of simplicity, adopt hypothetically, for the moment, die hedon-
istic definition of the good. It remains to examine how this
definition can be connected widi our ethical feelings and
convictions.

Henry Sidgwick, in his Methods of Ethics, argued at Jengdi
that all moral rules that arc generally recognized can be
deduced from the principle that we ought to aim at maximizing
pleasure; he even contended that this principle accounts for
the occasional exceptions that moral rules are admitted to
have. There are occasions when most people would say that it
is right to tell a lie, or to break a promise, or to steal or
kill; all these the hedonist’s principle explains. I think that, as
regards the moral code of ci\ilized communities, Sidgwick’s
contention is broadly true; at any rate, I am not prepared to
argue against it, subject to these limitations.

What, on diis theory, shall we say about praise and blame.'*
Blame, when it is deliberate, is both an emotion and a judgment:
I feel a dislike of the act that I blame, and I judge that I do
right in feeling this dislike. The emotion is just a fact, and
raises no theoretical issue, but the judgment is a more difficult
matter. I certainly do not mean, when I judge an act to be right,
that it is tlie act best calculated to maximize pleasure, for, if I

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IS THERE ETHICAL KNOWLEDGE? ‘

did, it would be logically impossible to dispute hedonism,
which it is not. Perhaps the judgment is'not re^y a judgment,
but another emotion, namely, an emotion of approval toward.*;
my likes or dislikes. According to this view, when I deliber-
ately, and not impulsively, blame an act, I dislike the act, and
feel towards my dislike an emotion of approval.

Another person, who disagrees with me about ethics, may
disapprove of rtiy approval; he will express his feeling in what
seepis to be a judgment, saying “you ought not to have blamed
that det”, or something equivalent. But on our present theory
he is still expressing an emotion; neither he nor I is making
any assertion, and therefore our conflict is only practical, not
theoretical.

If we define “right ', the matter is different We can then
have a judgment “this is right". If our definition is not to have
paradoxical results, our definition of “right” must be sudi that
usually, when an act is right according to our definition, it is
one towards which wc feel the emotion of approval, and when
it is wrong, it is one towaids which we feel disapproval. We are
thus led to seek for some common property of as many as
possible of the acts commonly approved (or disapproved). If all
had such a common property, we .should have no hesitation in
defining this as “right”. But we do not find anything quite so
convenient as this. What w do find is that most of the acts
towards which people feel the emotion of approval have a
certain common property, and that t'>e exc optional acts, which
have not this property, tend to be nc longer approved of when
people have become clearl}' aware of their exceptional character.
We may then say, in a sense, that approval of such acts is
mistaken.

We can now set up a series of fundamental propositions and
definitions in Ethics.

( 1 ) Surveying the acts which arouse emotions of approval
or disapproval, we find that, as a general rule, the acts which
are approved of are those believed likely to have, on the

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HOMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

balance, effects of certain kinds, while opposite effects are
expected from acts that are disapproved of.

(2) Effects that lead to approval are defined as “good”, and
those leading to disapproval as “bad”.

(3) An act of which, on the available evidence, the effects
are likely to be better than those of any other act that is pos.sible
in the circumstances, is defined as “right”; any other act is
“wrong”. What we “ought” to do is, by definition, the act
which is right.

( 4 ) It is right to feel approval of a right act and disapproval
of a wrong act.

Tliese definitions and propositions, if accepted, provide a
coherent body of ethical propositions, which are true (or false)
in the same sense as if they were propositions of science.

It is clear that the difficulties are mainly concerned with the
first proposition of the above series. We must therefore
examine it more closely.

We have seen in previous chapters that different societies in
different ages have given approval to a wide diversity of .acts.
Primitive communities, at a certain stage of development,
approved of cannibalism and human sacrifice. Spartans approved
of homosexuality, which to Jews and Christians was an aboijii-
nation. Until the late seventeenth century, almost everybody
approved of the burning of reputed witches, which we now
regard as senseless cruelty. But these differences were rooted
in differences of belief as to the effects of actions. Human
sacrifice was supjxised to promote fertility. The Spartans
thought that homosexuality promoted courage in battle. We
might still approve of the execution of witches, if we believed
that they had the maleficent powers with which they were
credited in the Middle Ages. The difference between our-
selves and other ages in these respects is attributable to a
difference between our beliefs and theirs as to the effects
of actions. The actions which they condemned were such as,
in their opinion, would have certain effects, and we agree

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IS THERE ETHICAL KNOWLEDGE?

with them in thinking that such effects are to be avoided
if possible.

We are thus led to the conclusion that there is more agree-
ment among mankind as to the effects at which we should aim
than as to the kinds of acts tliat are approved. I think the con-
tention of Henry Sidgwick, that the acts which are approved of
are those that are likely to bring happiness or pleasure, is,
broadly speaking, true. Not infrequently, an ancient tabu,
which it was formerly thought disastrous to infringe, may
survive, through the force of custom and tradition, long after
the beliefs which gave rise to it have been forgotten. But in
such cases the tabu has a precarious hfe, and is apt to be thrown
over by those who come across, by travel or by study, customs
different from those in which they have been brought up.

I do not think, however, that pleasure is quite the nearest
that we tan come to the common quality of the great majority
of approved actions. I think we must include such things as
intelligence and aesthetic sensibility. If we were really per-
suaded that pigs are happier than human beings, we should not
on that account welcome the ministrations of Circe. If miracles
were possible,and we could choose exactly the life that we should
prefer, most of us would prefer a life in which we could, at
least part of the time, enjoy the delicate delights of art and
intellect, to one consisting wholly of houris, wines, and hot
baths — ^partly, no doubt, from fear of satiety, but not wholly.
We do not, in fact, value pleasuKs in proportion to their
intensity; some pleasures seem to us inherently preferable to
others.

If it is admitted that the great majority of approved acts arc
such as are believed to have certain effects, and if it is found,
further, that exceptional acts, which are approved without
having this character, tend to be ni* longer approved when
their exceptional character is realized, then it becomes possible,
in a certain sense, to speak of ethical error. We may say that it
is "wrong” to approve of such exceptional acts, meaning that

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HOMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

such approval does not have the effects which mark the great
majority of approved acts, and which we have agreed to take
as the criterion of what is “right”.

Although, on the above theory, ethics contains statements
which are true or false, and not merely optative or imperative,
its basis is still one of emotion and feeling, the emotion of
approval and the feeling of enjoyment or satisfaction, the
former being involved in the definition of “right” and “wrong”,
the latter in that of “intrinsic value”. And the appeal upon
which we depend for the acceptance of our ethical theory is not
the appeal to tlie facts of perception, but to the emotions and
feelings which have given rise to the concepts of “right” and
“wrong”, “good” and “bad”.

118

CHAPTER X

Authority in Kthics

THERE are various objections which arc commonly raised
apj^inst tlie kind of ethical system that we have been developing.
One of these is that tliere seems to be a lack of authority about
ethical maxims liaving no basis cxc(‘pt that suggested in the
foregoing chapters. I will consider this objection in the present
chapter. Let us think, in the first place, what we mean by
“authority". There is human authority, and, for the orthodox,
there is Divine authority. There is the authority of Truth and
there is the authority of conscieiue In orthodox morals, all
these combine. “W’hy ought I to do so and so^" “llccause it is
the Will of God —because it is what the community approve —
because it is an eternal Truth that jou ought to do so and so —
because your conscience, if vou will but listen to it, tells you
that this is what you ought to do." In face of thi^ ethical broad-
side, it is hoped that your carnal desires will shrink abashed.
A community where all these kinds of authority are recognized
will, it is thought, be mOi aj>t to do what it ought than a
community governed by more mundane considerations. This is
held to be so obvious that it is not ' ubmitted to any statistical
test. I think that, if it we're, the result might be surprising.
Let us compare two communities, say thirteenth century Italy
and modern England. In the former, practically everybody
believed that rape led to Hell unless follow^ed by due repentance.
In modem England, few belie\e this. But, il one is to believe
Salimbenc, monks in thirtc'enth c»nuiry Itarly w^ere more
addicted to rape than any except a few recognized criminals in
modem England. I think a broad sur\ey of history makes it
extremely doubtful whether such moral precepts as have

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HUMAK SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

obvious ethical value are more obeyed where 'they have the
above four-fold authority than in more free-thinking com-
munities. This, however, is by the way, and it is time to come
to grips with the difficulties that are likely to be felt.

We may crystallize our discussion round two questions:
A. Why should 7 do what you. say I ought.-’ B. Where there
are ethical disagreements, how shall we decide.? Let us begin
with A.

There is here, to begin with, a religious answer, which has
the merit of simplicity. Y ou should do what I say you ought,
because that is the Will of God. The man who is not convinced
by this simple answer may reply in either of two ways. He may
say, “How do you know it is the Will of Ciod?” or he may say,
“Wliy should I obey God’s Will?” To the second of these
questions there is a simple answer: “God is omnipotent and, if
you do not obey His Will, He will punish you. ^^’hereas, if you
do, you may get to Heaven." This answer pre-supposes
egoistic hedonism, namely, the doctrine that every mai>should
try to get as much pleasure for himself as possible. This has
always been the orthodox Christian teaching, although rhetori-
cally-minded moralists have tried to wrap it up in edifying
phrases. It makes morality indistinguishable from prudence,
which may be defined as the endurance of a small j)resent evil
for the sake of a great future good. The reasons for virtue in
this doctrine are precisely identical with the reasons for not
living beyond your income. The doctrine does' not differ from
that of secular moralists on any point of ethics, but only on a
question of brute fact: namely, shall 1, if I do A, enjoy eternal
bliss in Heaven, but if I do B, suffer eternal torments in Hell?
'This is not an ethical question. I will therefore discuss it no
further.

The more interesting question is, “How am I to know what
is the Will of God?” Ordtodox writers on ethics always make
a point of the contention that their system is objective, while
that of secular moralists is subjective. I think there is no truth

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in this whatsoever. A doctrine is objective if it follows, by
arguments generally recognized as valid* from facts not thought
open to question. There must be some metliod of appealing to
those who do not already hold the doctrine by means of con-
siderations of which, in the end, they acknowledge the validity.
There are controversies in science, but there are recognized
methods of arriving at decisions. Tliis is not the case when
there are controversies as to the Will of God. Protestants tell
us, or used to tell us, that it is contrary to the Will of God to
work on Sundays. But Jews say that it is on Saturdays that God
objects to work. Disagreement on this point has persisted for
nineteen centuries, and I know no method of putting an end to
the disagreement except Hitler’s lethal chambers, which would
not generally be regarded as a legitimate method in scientific
controversy. Jew.s and Mohammedans assure us that God
forbids pork, but Hindus saj' that it is beef that He forbids.
Disagreemejit on tliis j)oint has caused hundreds of tliousands
to be massacred in recent years. It can hardly be said, there-
fore, that the W’ill of God gives a basis for an objective ethic.

Why then do people cling to it so obstinately? Partly from
tradition, but partly also for other reasons. It gives you an
assurance and a certainty which are otherwise likely to be
lacking. “Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war” is an
invigorating exhortation, ihosc who are united in believing
that the Will of God enjoins certain things which the enemy
does not do may be expected to fight the enemy with more
energy and gusto, and with less compunction, than if they were
not inspired by this belief. In my occasional contacts witli those
in authority over our armed forces I have found almost all of
them deeply religious, and, when I have inquired into the basis
of their faith, I have usually found that they think belief in
Christianity encouraging to those wlio have to* drop hydrogen
bombs. I will not, at the moment, argue this matter as it
belongs rather to politics than to ethics. I will merely remark
that, as one whose ethic has no supernatural source, I am not

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‘wholly persuaded that readiness for lai^e-scale homicide
deserves whole-hearted ethical admiration.

A dispassionate inquirer, like myself, if anxious to ascertain
what is the Will of God, will not confine himself to the opinions
of his immediate neighbours, but will send out a questionnaire
to leaders of religious thought throughout the world, since
they, but not he, profess to have tlie necessary knowledge. I am
afraid he will find it very difficult to discover any point upon
which all are agreed, and he will be compelled to conclude th^,
by this road at any rate, ethical objectivity is unattainable.

There is a non-tlieological variant of what is really much the
same doctrine. It consists in saying that we all know the
meaning of the word “ought”, and that we can perceive what
we ought to do just as we can perceive that grass is green. I'he
faculty by which we perceive this is called “conscience”.
According to this doctrine, the statement, “I ought to do X”,
is true or false in the same sense in which “grass is green” is
true, and “blood is green” is false. Here the authority is no
longer God’s Will, but Truth. I have examined this doctrine in
an earlier chapter, and sliall therefore now deal with it briefly.
Tliere are just the same sort of disagreements as to what
conscience prescribes as there are about the Will of God, and
there is not, as in science, a recognized lethniciue for resolving
disagreements. The only recognized technique is that of govern-
ment in a large sense, 'fhere is what tlie law enjoins, and there
is what your neighbours approve or disapprove. This creates a
certain amount of agreement among members of the same
community or the same State, but it does not produce an
agreement transcending frontiers or extending to different
cultures. If has, therefore, no advantages over the Divine Will
as a basis of ethics.

Before going further, let us consider for a moment the nature
of our problem. We are inquiring into different possible
meanings of the word “ought" when A says to B “you ought
to do X”. This question is in part factual. If A says “you ought

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to obey the Will of God”, it is a factual,question whether diere
is a God and, if so, what He wills. But, as a rule, the question is
not factual. Nor, on the other hand, is it logical. There are a
host of possible answers to which it would be impossible to
make a logical objection, but which nevertheless no one would
seriously consider. You might say, "the virtuous man is the
man who tries to cause as much pain as possible”. If you said
this, it would not be the logician who could refute you. What,
then, makes us instantly reject such a suggestion? It is the fact
that, as a rule, people do not desire to suffer pain. Or, again:
Supi)Ose you said, "the greatest evil is Sin, and I can manufac-
ture robots which shall have no sexual parts and shall therefore
be incapable of sin. I can make those robots do all the things
tliat are usually praised. I can make them read the Bible. I can
make them preach eloquent sermons. And I can make robot
congregations that will weep and beat their breasts as they
hear the robot preachers' moving sermons.” All this is as yet
a beautiful dream, but I darc*say it will become possible within
the next himdrod years. But, if A said to B, "You ought to
substitute robots for human beings, because robots do not sin",
almost everybody would reply that the robot w'orld, since it
would be destitute of sentience, w'ould be neither good nor bad,
and would be in no way better than a w’orld of ordinary matter
unable to perform the robots’ imitative tricks. Such considera-
tions make it plain that whatever "ought” may mean, it has
something to do with sentience and ^itli desire. Where these
are absent, there is neither gotxl nor bad, neither virtue nor
sin. It follows that, if our definition of “ought” is not to be
arbitrary and paradoxical, it mu.st bear some relation to sen-
tience and desire. This is one requisite that our definition must
fulfil.

There is another which takes us further into the heart of the
matter. If ethics is to have any objectivity, we want to find a
meaning of "ought” such that, when A says to B, "you ought
to do X”, this does not depend upon who A is. This at once

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rules out a great many moral codes. If A is a theologically
orthodox Aztec, the act X, which he ordains, may be that of
killing and eating a human victim. If two nations, M and N,
are at war with each other, and A is a member of nation M, the
act X, which he commends, may be that of killing as many
members of nation N as possible; while if A is a member of
nation N, it will be citizens of nation M whose death he will
prescribe. If you are a mediaeval Cathoh»% you will hold that it
is wicked to kill by abortion a foetus in the womb of a heretic
woman, but that it is virtuous to let the foetus be bom and
nourished until it becomes old enough to deserve death at the
stake. If you are a modem Free-thinker, you will not agree
with this opinion. How, then, are we to arrive at objectivity in
our definition of "ought”?

One may lay it down broadly that the whole subject of ethics
arises from the pressure of the community on the individual.
Man is very imperfectly gregarious, and does not always
instinctively feel the desires which are useful to his heftl. The
herd, being anxious that the individual should act in its interests,
has invented various devices for causing the individual's
interest to be in harmony w ith that of the herd. One of these is
government, one is law and custom, and one is morality.
Morality becomes an effcithc force in two ways: first, through
the prai.se and blame of neighbours and authorities; and
second, by the self-praise and self-blame which are called
"conscience”. Through these various forces — government, law,
morals — the interest of the community is brought to bear upon
the individual. It is to the interest of the community, for
example, that no one should steal. But, apart from the above
forces, it would be to my interest that I should steal, but no
one else. Only tyrants can maintain themselves in this excep-
tional position, and tyrants are not approved when they no
longer have power. I think we may say, in spite of the fact that
tyrants occur, that the purpose of a moral code, in so far as it
is not superstitious, is to bring the interest of the community

12*

AUTHORITY IN ETHICS

to bear upon the individual, and to produce an identity between
his interest and that of his herd which would not otherwise
exist.

We may say, therefore, as a first step towards the answer to
our question, that, if A and B belong to the same herd, when A
says to B, "you ought to have done X”, he means, "the act X
would have furthered the interests of tlie herd to which we both
belong”. This insures that any two persons who in the relevant
rqspects belong to B’s herd will give the same answer to the
question if they make no mistake of fact, but it does not insure
that people outside that herd will give tlie same answer. We
are thus led to the question of partial and general goods whidi
was discussed in an earlier chapter, and are led, by the argu-
ments given in that chapter, to the conclusion that the only way
to secure objectivity in tlie meaning of "ought” is to enlarge
our herd until it embraces all human beings, or, better perhaps,
everything sentient. In this way, and in this way only, can we
insure that what A says B ought to do docs not depend upon
who A is. It is such considerations that lead me to adopt the
following definition:

When A says to B, "you ought to do X”, I shall define the
word "ought” as meaning that, of all acts that are possible for
B, X is the one most likcl3' to further the interests of mankind,
or of all sentient beings.

Although by the above method we have secured a measure
of objectivity in our definition of ' ought”, it should not be
forgotten that, in a certain sense, the sani'tion of any morality
is ultimately egoistic. A man’s actions are partly reflex, partly
habitual, and partly the result of desire. When I sneeze or
yawn, I do not do so in the belief that this action furthers ray
interest. When I perform some purely habitual action, such as
dressing, I may be quite unaware ot .vhat I am doing, and, in
any case, am not deliberately choosing one course of action in
preference to another, except when I am debating what clothes
to wear. The moralist is not concerned witli actions that are

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merely reflex or habitual, but with deliberate choices.' Now
when I make a choice,' it is my desires that are operative. The
desires of others are only effective in so far as they influence
mine. To say that I shall act on my own desires, is to utter a
tautology. When moralists tell us, as they are too apt to do,
that we ought to resist desire for the sake of higher things,
what they really mean is that we ought to subordinate some
desires to others. The others, which the moralist wishes to see
supreme, are of two sorts. There is first the wish to please apd
to earn praise from our friends or from the authorities, or, if
we live in the Italian Renaissance, posterity. But there is also
another kind of desire, which is tliat involved in love or sym-
pathy, which is the straightforward uncomplicated desire for
the welfare of others. Almost everybody feels this in some
degree. It is abnormal not to feel it towards one’s children
while they are young. Either of these two classes of desire
tends to harmonize my interests with those of others. 1 define
my interests as all the things that I desire, and therefoae, in so
far as I desire the welfare of others, tliis becomes part of my
interests. Although, therefore, what determines my action is
what 7 desire, and is in this sense egoistic, it is not necessarily
egoistic as regards the objects desired.

I come now to the second question mentioned at the begin-
ning of this chapter, namely, "where there are ethical disagree-
ments, how shall we decide?” Tliere are here various kinds of
disagreement to be considered. Of the disagreements that occur
in practice, much the greater number can be reduced to dis-
agreements as to fact, and are theiefore not essentially ethical.
When Mr. A and Mr. B disagree, it may l>e possible to prove
fliat the system upheld by Mr. B will bring more satisfaction
to Mr. A than Mr. A’s system will. I have heard it said,
though I am not sure whether this is historically correct, that
Quakers were the first people to adopt the plan of fixed prices
in shops. It is said that they did this because they thought it a
lie to ask more than you were willing to take. But fixed prices

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AUTHORITY IHf ETHICS

proved sudi a convenience to customers that Quaker shop-
keepers all grew rich, and the others' found it advisable to
follow suit. This is an example of a large class of cases in which
real and apparent self-interest conflict, and the only people who
act in harmony with real self-mterest are those who have a
moral principle compellmg tliein to go against what they
believe to be their interest. In such cases a better appreciation
of fact would prevent ethical disagreement. People who are
defeated in war very often believe themselves to be upholding
some ethical principle, but if they had foreseen their defeat,
they would have perceived that their principle, whether valid or
not, would not be upheld by such means.

There are however some genuine purely ethical disagree-
ments. Tlie most important of these is as to vindictive punish-
ment. When we hate a man and think him wicked, we are
liable to find pleasure in the thought of Ins suffering, and we
may easily persuade ourselves that this suffering is a good
thing on its own account. This is the basis of the belief in Hell,
where punishment i% not supposed to have any reforming
effect. Belief in vindictive puni-shment has also more mundane
forms. When the Germans were defeated at the end of the
First World War, there was a very wide-spread feeling that
they ought to be punished, not only in order to reform them or
in order to deter others from following their example, but also
because it was just that such appalling sin should be followed
by suffering. Undoubtedly this fet » ng helped to produce the
folly of Versailles and the subsequent treatment of Gei many. I
do not know how to prove that vindictive punishment is a bad
thing. There are, however, two kinds of argument which can
be brought. One is that the whole conception of sin is mistaken,
as I have argued in a previous chapter. The other is an argu-
ment from prudence. Versailles and its aftermath led to the
Nazis and the Second World War. I think one may lay it down
that in the great majority of cases vindictive punishment does,
not have the eflTects which are hoped for by those who inflict itj

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POtlTICS

but diminishes the total of satisfaction of desire, not only in
those who are punished, but also in those who punish. This
however is a large question leading straight into many vexed
problems of politics. I shall therefore say no more about it at
present.

Most of the disagreements that occur in practice are, not as
to what things have intrinsic value, but as to who shall enjoy
them. The holders of power naturally demand for themselves
the lion's share. Disagreements of this sort tend to become
mere contests for power. In theory, this sort of question can be
decided by our general criterion: that system is best which
produces a maximum of intrinsic value. Disputes may remain
when both sides accept this criterion, but they will then have
become disputes as to fact and will be, at least in theory,
amenable to scientific treatment.

I will end this chapter by applying its principles to two
questions that I have often found troublesome. The first of
these is as to cruelty, and the second is as to the rights of the
individual against society.

When I am compelled, as happens very frequently in the
modern world, to contemplate acts of cruelty which make me
shudder with horror, I find myself constantly impelled towards
an ethical outlook which I cannot justify intellectually. I find
myself thinking, “These men are wkked and what they do is
bad in some absolute sense for which iny theory has not pro-
vided”. I believe, however, that this feeling does not do justice
to the theory. Let us see what the theory permits. It is clear, to
begin with, that acts of cruelty in general diminish the total
satisfaction of mankind and are therefore such as, on our
definition, ought not to be performed. It is clear, further, that
the emotion of disapproval towards such acts tends to prevent
them, and is therefore, on our definitions, such as ought to be
felt. But at this point the kind of theory that I have been advo-
cating exercises a useful restraint, which is absent from more
absolute theories. It does not follow, because A is cruel, that

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B is right to be cruel towards A. It follows only that he does
right in trying to prevent A from committing further cruel acts.
If, as may well happen, this is more likely to be effected by
kindness than by punishment, then kindness is the better
method. Doctor Burt (now Sir Cyril), in his book on the
juvenile delinquent, beguis with an account of a boy of seven
who committed a murder. He was treated with kindness and
became a det'ent citizen. It was not possible to apply this
method to Hitler, and I do not wish to suggest that in his case
it would have succeeded. But it is possible to apply it to the
German nation. Such considerations, I maintain, show that our
ethic justifies a proper horror of cruelty without justifying the
excesses to which this horror often leads.

I come now to my last question, which concerns the rights of
the individual as against society. Ethics, we said, is part of an
attempt to make man more gregarious than nature made him.
The stresses and strains w’itli which morals are concerned are
due, it may be said, to the only partial gregariousness of the
human species. But this is a half-truth. Many of the things that
are best in the human species are due to the fact that it is not
completely gregarious. The individual has his own intrinsic
value, and the best individuals make contributions to the
general good which are not demanded, and are often even
resented, by the rest of tue herd. It is therefore an essential
part of the pursuit of the general good to allow to individuals
such freedoms as are not obvious] , injurious to others. It is
this that gives rise to tlie perennial conflict of liberty and
authority, and sets limits to the principle that authority is the
source of virtue.

1£9

CHAPTER XI

Production and Distribution

WE shall be concerned in this chaptci with matters in which
the problems of ethics are almost indistinguishable from tho*se
of economics and politics. I shall henceforth assume as accepted
the definitions of ‘'intrinsic value*' and ''right conduct" arrived
at in an earlier chapter, namely:

Intrimic value is the property of a state of mind wliich is
enjoyed or which, ha\ing been experienced, is desired. The
opposite of intrinsic \alue is called intrinsic disvalue A value
and a disvalue are considered equal when a person who has the
choice is indifierent as to whether he experiences both or
neither.

Right conduct is conduct which maximizes the balance of
value over disvalue or minimizes the balance of disvalue over
value, the choice being anrong acts that are possible.

Right conduct, so defined, is not quite the same thing as
moral conduct or virtuous conduct in the sense generally given
to these teinis. It includes moral conduct, but has a slightly
larger scope. We do not, as a rule, say that a man is virtuous
because he abstains fiom eating to excess, wc merely say that
he is sensible from a purely egoistic standpoint; whereas
virtuous conduct, as generally understood, usually involves
some non-egoistic element. There are, in fact, two different
departments of ethics, one concerned with the production of
intrinsic value and the other with distribution. Morality, except
when it is superstitious, is mainly concerned with distribution.
We decided in an earlier chapter that ethics is not concerned
with the question, "Who enjoys what has intrinsic vaJue.^" but
Cttily with producing as great a quantitv of intrinsic value as

130

PHODVCTtON K^t> DlSTniBVTtOH

possible. This, however, is not the way tiiat^people’s feel!i^‘
work. We want intrinsic value for ourselves and for l3ie people
of whom we are fond. We may perhaps extend our feelings to
aU our compatriots, but it is only very few people who extend
them to all mankind. It follows that the distribution of intrinsic
value which people naturally desire is not impartial, and is
therefore not at aU likely to be what makes the total of intrinsic
value as large as possible. Morality is to a very large extent an
ajtempt to combat this partiality and to lead people in action to
attach as much importance to the good of others as to their own.

There is much more disagreement about distribution than as
to what constitutes intrinsic value. It is because there is so
little disagreement as to intrinsic value that it is suitable as the
fundamental concept of ethics. Let us endeavour to give con-
crete content to tlie conception of intrinsic value.

The first thing to observe is that intrinsic value does not
belong to external objects in their own right, but only to their
psychological eifccts. It is states of mind that have the quality
in question, and the things that cause these' states of mind do
not have intrinsic value on their own account. They have
value as means for tliose in whom they produce the desired
results, but not lor others Oysters have value as means for
those who like them, but not for those who do not. But, although
there are some difference'' between different people as to the
things that cause them to feel satisfaction, there is a very large
measure of agreement, jiarticularl where the simpler goods
are concerned. Everybody requires the conditions of life and
health, and most people require the conditions of biological
survival. There have been ascetics who were happy, or said
they were happy, with insufficient food and drink and shelter
and clothing, but such men are rare, and statistically they may
be ignored. Most people need for ihtir happiness, in addition
to the material conditions of life, a certain amount of friendly
companionship, a certain minimum of security, and a sense of
integratiofi in some herd. All these needs are so nearly universal

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

that politics can ignore the few who can dispense with them.
All these needs are at present very unevenly distributed. There
are of course "'higher"' values, such as enjoyment of works of
art or pleasure in intellectual activity, but these liave not the
primary importance of the more elementary needs.

Among the means to happiness there is an important divi-
sion. There are those which, if enjoyed by A, are taken away
from B; and there are others which do not have this quality of
personal possession. As lago says, "‘He that filches fropi
me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed." A good name is not a tiling like a
loaf of bread which can be appropriated by a thief. So at least
lago said — but this is only partly true. People who are
anxious to be admired are generally full of envy because they
realize that there is a certain quantum of admiration to be
distributed and that the admiration given to one man is apt to
be lost by another. The same sort of considerations apply to
every kind of eminence. If you w'ish to stand above youB fellows
in some respect, you may achieve your object by increasing
your merits or by diminishing theirs, but it is logically impos-
sible that everybody should enjoy pre-eminence. The sensations
of a man who owns a Derby winner have intrinsic value, but of
a sort which cannot be universalized. Short of a system of
universal delusion, it is impossible that everybody should
enjoy the delights of owning a Derby winner. We may there-
fore distinguish three kinds of sources of intrinsic value: First,
goods in which there can be private ownership, but which can,
at least in theory, be sufliciently supplied to everybody. Of
these, the stock c^xample is food. Second, goods which not only
arc private, but, by their logical charai'ter, arc Incapable of
being generally enjoyed. These are those derived from pre-
eminence, whether in fame or power or riches or what not. In
theory, we might all be rich, but we cannot all be the richest
man alive. Desires for pre-eminence, therefore, have a logically
inescapable competitive character. Third, there are intrinsic

PKODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION

values of which the possession does^ nothing whatever to
diminish the possibilities of equal enjoyments for others. In
this category are such things as health, pleasure in being alive
on a fine day, friendship, love, and the joys of creation.

The attitude of the moralist will be different in regard to
these three classes. Let us begin with the first class, which
consists broadly of material things such as economics deals
with — ^food, clothes, houses, etc. We have first to ask ourselves
whether tliere is an ethical principle that may be called ‘'justice"
which enables us to say that a "just" distribution of material
goods has an intrinsic value. In our definition of right conduct
we assumed that this is not the case, and that right conduct
consists in jmiducing as great a quantity ot intrinsic value as
possible, independent^ of who enjoys it. Jlut it may be urged
that a rominunity in which intrinsic value evenly distributed
IS betttT than one in which the distribution is uneven, even if
the total quantity of iiitr»nsic value is no greater. I do not
myself believe this. I think that there are strong arguments for
approximating to an even distribution, but 1 tliink they are all
compatible wdlh treating justice as a means rather than an end.
The main ohjet'tion to an uneven distribution is that it causes
envy and hatu*d in the less fortunate, leading to fear and
conelative hatred in the more fortunate. But where a long-
established social system has so sanctioned an uneven distribu-
tion that even the less fortunate acquiesce without resentment,
this argument docs not appl 3 ^ T1k*c are, moreover, in some
societies positive arguments for inequality. I think therefore
that, while the argument's for appn^ximately ecjual distribution
are verj' strong w^herever an ancient tradit'on is not dominant,
they are nevertheless arguments as to nK‘?ns, and I do not
think that justice can be admitted something having intrinsic
value on its own account.

Although I think justice a means rather than an end, I think
that, as a means, it is within limits exceedingly desirable. A
very large part of conventional moral teaching is concerned

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS;

A

with curbing natural egoism. The prohibition of stealing, the
command to love thy neighbour as thyself, the exhortations to
self-sacrifice, and the praise of charity, all have this purpose. I
am not sure that the traditional moral teaching which had this
purpose adopted altogether the best teclmique, but that is
another question. For my part, 1 am inclined to agree with
Jeremy Bentham that the desired result is not likely to be
achieved by moral exhortation, but rather by social institutions
and a public opinion which make it, as far as i)ossible, to each
person’s interest to act as the general interest demands.
Bentham, as became his period, was a trifle too rationalistic
and external in his tlcvices for bringing about harmony betvveen
the public and the pri\ate interest. I should allow a larger part
than he does to affection, instinctive symj)athy, and ambitions
that are useful rather than harmful. But 1 should agree that
moral precepts alone are not likely to bring about a good rcwsult
while the conflict betvseen public and private interests remains
sharp and obvious.

In regard to many of the goods Ixdonging to our first class
there would be no (xxasion for etliical cc'iisidcrations if political
and economic institutions were better them they are. It would
be easy, given such institutions, to pro\ide enough food for
everybody, in which case the whole matter of food distribution
would be remo\cd from the sphere of ethics. In this way, as in
some others, the importance of moral action diminishes as the
social system improves. In so far as the distribution of material
goods is coiKeriicd, it could, in lime, be reduced to the observa-
tion of well-established and not very irksome customs.

It is quite otherwise with our second class of' intrinsic values
— ^namely, those which arc by their logic al nature competitive.
The most injportant of these is power. Almost everybody who
is not exceptionally lazy desires more than his due share of
power, if not in the world at large, at least in his immediate
environment. Wars and revolutions, throughout history, have
been caused mainly by love of power. In States where tyrants

PRODUCTfON AND DISTRIBUTION

are usually assassinated, there is, nevertheless, bloody com-
petition for tho post of tyrant. There his been, in the Western
world, during tlic past few centuries, a very rapid decline in
arbitrary power. Kings, slave-owners, Imsbands and fathers
have been successively deposed, and there has been a serious
attempt to equalize the distribution of ultimate power as far as
possible. In this respect the clainis of wliat may be called justice
are very strong. Tliose who ha\'e power almost always abuse it.
^tliough tliere are exceptions, they are rare.

Apart from moral exhortation, of which the efficacy is very
limited, there art \arious w'ays of diminishing the evils due to
excessive power. One of the.se is to facilitate resistance on the
part of its victims. This is the method of dcn'orracy Another is
to educate in .such a manner that acquired skills will lean the
love of power into useful rather than harmful channels. I^ove of
power, like otI\cr deep-scaled impulses, cannot be wholly
suppre.ssed without great damage to those who, in <onse-
qucnce, feel thwarted, but it can easily be turned into directions
in which it is generallv beneficial. 'I'liis is often, though not
always, the case when what is sought is power ovec nature or
knowledge of natural laws. It is also often, though not alway.s,
the ease with tho power over men’s minds that is aihievcd by
creative genius. In regard to jiower, as ii. other directions, the
best ethical maxims are .lol ascetic, but consist rather in
encouraging and providing outlets which are not destnirlive.

As regards our third class of go Is — ^namely, those in which
one man’s possession docs not intcifere, of necessity, ^ ith that
of aiiother --there ought to he no jiiohlem of di.stribution, but,
in fact, there is. I’lie sort of goods dial 1 am thinking of have a
very wide range, from a child’s jot in living to the mo.sl refined
mental delights in the creation or enjoymem of vv'orks of genius.
In so far as oik person’s cnjoymciu i' such delights interferes
with another’s, this is due to remediable defects in the social
system. Health, for example, ought to be nearly universal, but
w'herc wotk is excessive and medicine expensive it becomes the

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

prerogative of the well-to-do. George Lansbiiry induced the
authorities in Poplar t'o improve medical care by raising the
rates beyond what was legally permitted, and thereby dimin-
ished the infant death-rate. For this, he was sent to prison. All
the good things that depend upon higher education are, at
present, the prerogative of a minority; and so are those tliat
depend upon considerable leisure. In sucli ways tliere is, at
present, competition which is not essentially necessary, but the
remedy lies in politics rather than in ethics.

There is one large question as to distribution on which I
have not yet touched. It is the (juestion of posterity. How
much of present good sliould be sacrificed for the sake of future
generations.^ It is difficult to refuse a certain sympatliy with the
Irishman who said, "'Why should I do anything for posterity?
It never did anything for me.” Nevertheless, posterity has its
claims. We arc grateful to those who, in the past, planted
avenues whicli they did not li\e to s(^e full-grown. We hav'^e
good reason to be concerned when soils aic exliqjtsted by
unwise cultivation. We are far too careless of the world's
mineral resources. We are even carrying pleasure in combat to
the point wliere we seem to face with equanimity the possibility
that we may exterminate the human race. In tliesc ways ours is
an unusually reckless age. It is reckless because everything is
fluid and the future is uncertain. Until some stability is re-
covered, it is unlikely tliat men wdll give due thouglit to
posterity.

This is a more serious matter than is sometimes tliought. An
individual cannot, without becoming sterile, confine his pur-
view to liis owm life, nor even to his own country or his own
age. Each of us is part of a long chain from our remote animal
ancestry into an unforeseeable future. The human race has
emerged slowly from the condition of a rare and miserable
hunted animal, but if we suppose that it has no further journey
to make, that there are no greater perfections to be achieved in
the future, and that we are approaching a dead-end, something

PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION

deeply instinctive and immeasurably important will wither and
die. I am thinking of something whfch in most people is
scarcely conscious, somctliing which acquires explicit expres-
sion only in a few, but which belongs to us in our inmost being,
because we are not merely individuals but members of a species.
It is for this reason that in judging of a country or a period I
should attach importance, not only to the day-by-day happiness
of the individuals coiw'erned, but to its contribution to civili-
Zc^tion, by which I miMn the stock of all those mental goods
wliich distinguish man from the ape and civilized man from the
sa\age. It is these things that make the unitiue importance of
man, and it is of these things that eac'h generation in turn is
the trustee. To hand on the treasure, not diminished, but
increased, is our supreme duty to postc'rity. I v\ish I could
believe that we are performing it.

137

CHAPTER XII

Superstitious Ethics

IN previous chapters it has been argued that the rightness or
wrongness of an act depends upon its probable consequences,
and not upon its belonging to some class of acts labelled
virtuous or sinful witliout regard to their effects. It is possible
to accc})t tliis view in tlic abstract without realizing how
contrary it is to rccci\ed usage. I'he word ‘'ethics'', and still
more the adjectixe “unetiiicar', commonly implies some
mysterious and inexplicable cjuality which an act is known to
possess in virtue either of a traditional tabu or of some super-
natural revelation. I'liis point of view governs the ethical
judgments of most people and deeply affects criminal ]fiw. It is
this point of view’ that I am calling “superstitious ethics".
Consider the following propositions:

It is w'icked to eat pork;
it is wicked to eat beef;
it is wicked for a widow' to evade suttee;
it is wdeked to w'ork on Saturdays;
it is wicked to jday on Sundays;

it is wicked for two godparents of the same child to marry;
it is wicked to marry one's deceased wife’s sister, or one's
deceased husband's brother;
it is wdeked to fornicate;

it is wricked to have sexual relations with a member of
one's own sex;

it is wicked to commit suicide.

Each of these jiropositions has been fcj*vently maintained by
large and civilized communities. Some of them are embodied in

SUPERSTITIOUS ETHICS

the criminal law of advanced countries. I am not concerned to
argue whether sucli acts are or are not wicked. What I am
concerned with are tlie reasons given for supj)osing them to be
so. These reasons are derived in some case? from a tradition
having a pre-historic origin, but in most cases they are dcTived
from some sacred book which is considered so authoritative
that its dicta must never be questioned. Most of tlie moral
exhortation wliich is practised by tlie <'lerg}' or by those who
give strengthening advice in the Y.M.C.A., is concerned
with exhorting hearers to oliey such precepts; and failure to
obe}' them is viewed convenlionalh as mutli more lieinous tlian
unkindness, or malice insj)irerl by en\ y, (^r group luitred leading
to political disaster. A Victorian cotton manufacturer who
employi'd women in his mills might work th(*m for such long
hours and for such miserable wages that their health vas ruined
and their lues w'ere filled with anguish, but if he made enough
money, he wms respected, and might ))ecome a member of
Parliament, If, however, it becainr' known that he had had
sexual relations with some one ain(»ng the women in his
employ, he was regarded as a sinner, and public honours were
not for him. Pi’ofessional moralists lid\t‘ never considered, and
do not now consider, that kindliness, generosity, freedom from
envy and malic'e, are as important morally as obedience to the
rules imposed b}" a traditional *'ode. Indeed, a c}nic might be
tempted to think that one of the attractions of a traditional
code is the oj'jportunities wdiich it affords for thinking ill of
other people and for thw arting what should be innc»cent desires.

Support for this supposition may be derived frcmi tlic curious
selectivc'uess which characterizes the orthodox interpretation of
texts. There are in the Clospels two pronounct ments on divorce:
one forbidding it altogether, ilie other permitting it for adul-
tery. The Catholic Clmreli and tlie gioat majorit}- of Anglican
clergymen reject the more humane of these two pronouncements.

A good example of the effect of superstitious ethics upon the
law of England at the present day was afforded by the rejection

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

in the House of Lords, in 1936 , of the Voluntary Euthanasia
(Legalization) Bill. The purpose of this Bill was to permit
doctors, with the consent of tlie patient, to shorten suffering in
cases of incurable illness. There are large numbers of cases
every year of patients who suffer intense agony, especially from
cancer, and wlio have no hope of re'Cover)\ As the law stands,
no medical man, and no relative of the patient, has any right to
put any end to the suffering howeve.' much the patient may
wish him to do so. The late Lord Ponsonby, in the above-
mentioned Bill, proposed that, subject to elaborate safeguards,
the patient and his doctors together sliould have the right to
end his life somewhat sooner than it would end by nature.
Their Lordships were profoundly shocked by this suggestion
and rejected it by a large majority. Lord Fitzalan, who moved
the rejection of the Bill, objected to its title, and said: "I wish
he had given it good plain English w'ords, understandable by
the people, and called the bill what it is, a bill to legalize
murder and suicide, bei'ause, after all, that is what it^amounts
to.'' He went on to sa}: ''Of course, if this question is to be
considered, as I am .^ure it will not be, by noble Loi’ds in this
House, as if there was nc Cjod, then the situation is different.
Then we are driven back to being governed only by sentiment.
Well, sentiment has its merits, and in many ways I think
sentiment does much gocxl. But if we allow it to run away with
us, then it means an abandonment of principle, it means that
we are governed by our emotions, and we sac’rifice that great
virtue of grit which has been such a great characteristic of our
race. This is no party <juestion. For generations the great
majority of our preclc^cessors in this House, of all creeds and all
sections of opinion, have accc'pted the tradition that the
Almighty reserved to Himself alone the power to decide the
moment when life sliould becotne extinct. The Noble Lord
oi>posite comes down today with his Bill and asks us to usurp
this right to ourselves, to ignore the Almighty in this respect,
to insist on sharing this prerogative."

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SUPERSTITIOUS ETHICS

Several comments occur to one in reading these arguments.
There is no evidence that Lord Fitzalan was opposed to war or
to capital punishment, although in earli case human beings are
usurping what he calls the privilege of the Almighty. It is only
when killing is a kindness that he objects to it. And what
should we have to think of a God who shared Lord Fitzalan's
sentiments.^ Is it really credible that a wise, omnipotent, and
beneficent Being finds so much pleasure in watching the slow*
agonies of an innocent person that He will be angry with those
who shorten the ordeal? The House of Lords, encouraged by
the late Archbishop of Canterbury, apparently look this view',
though two medical Peers endeavoured to soften its cruelty by
vsaying that, c\en with the law" as it is, docTorr do often shorten
life in such cases in spite of the fact that in doing so they
become legally liable to be hanged. I'his contention might
ha\'e been put, more briefly than they ])ut it, in the simple
words: '‘hypocrisy at all costs’’.

I have dweit upon tins case of euthanasia both bec'ause it was
debated in Parliament not very long ago, and because it I’aises
no issue of politics. There is no question of rich agaitist ])oor,
conser\ative against labour, or any of tlie other issues on
which elections are fouglit. Tlie traditional moral code stands
out stark and c rued and immovable against the cdaiins of Kindly
feeling.

Some people may argue that opinion has become more liberal
siru'e 1936 *, and that, if a similar Bili w'cre introduced now", it
w"ould be more likely to pass. It is perhaps a sufficient answer
to point out that no similar Bill has been introduced. Probably
one of tlie reasems is that there are a certain number of believers
in traditional systems who would vole again* t any Member of
Parliament if he supported such a Bill, but that diere are very
few people of lilieral outlook who would desert their own
political party because their Member or Candidate of that
party had voted against euthanasia. Traditionalists hold tlieir
opinions more fanatically than their liberal-minded opponents,

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and therefore have power out of proportion to their numbers.
A man who publicly advocates any relaxation of the traditional
code can be made to suffer obloquy, but nothing of the sort can
be inflicted upon benighted bigots.

I can illustrate this 1‘rom my own experience: In the year
1940, I had a letter from a young American liberal criticizing
my book Marriage and Morals on the ground that everything
said in that book is now accepted by practically everybody, and
that the superstitions I was attacking are virtually extinct.^ A
few weeks later, as a result of legal proceedings, I was deprived
of a professorship in New York on*tlie explicit ground that
Marriage and Morals was 'lecherous, lewd, lascivious and
obscene”. I was in (onsequcnce subjected for a time to an
almost (‘omplete boycott throughout the United States.

It is of course true that public opinion in general is more
liberal than it was, and this has had some effect upon legisla-
tion, for example, as regards divorce. On the otlier hand, police
measures against homosexuals are being inlensifiti^ in this
coiuitry; and in New York State, where adultery is punishable
by imprisonment, tliere is no effective movement to alter the
law in tills respect. Many peojde say: ”What does the law
matter, seeing that it is not cnforccHl.?^” To my mind this is a
very fallacious argument. In the first place, any law which
cannot be enforced is bad, since it brings law into contempt. In
the second place, although tlie law is usually not enforced, it
can be invoked by a vindictive spouse or a p(ditical opponent,
and can be u.sed as a means of blackmail. For these reasons,
among others, I cannot think that the (dhcial profession of an
ethical standard that is neither obeyed nor believed in by the
majority of the population is a matter wliich ought to be
viewed with eejuanimity.

The main argument against superstitious ethics is that they
come down to us from less civilized times and embody a harsh-
ness from which w^e should try to escape. Affection towards
intimates and kiiully feeling towards the world at large are the

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SUPERSTITIOUS ETHICS

sentiments most likely to lead to right conduct. Traditional
precepts have quite other sources. Why is birth control wicked?
Because the Lord struck Onan dead. Why is homosexuality
wicked? Because the Lord destroj’^cd Sodom and Gomorrah,
Why is adultery wicked? Because of the Seventh Command-
im^nt, I am not saying tliat tliere may not be heller reasons for
some at least of tliese prohibitions. What I am saving is that
the traditional reasons are invalid and should be forgotten.

There is another aspect of superstitious ethics v,hkh is very
harmful. It is that whiih liolds tliat people uho (lo certain
things are sinners and dcserxe to suller. 1 am not suggesting
that there wshould be no such thing as jHinishment or the criminal
law. What 1 am «-aying is that punishment, where ]4istifiahle, is
a regrettable necessity and not something to rejoice at as a just
retribution. If a man arrives in London with the plague, lie and
all with whom he has had contact arc isolated and subjected to
various disagrccal)les. Hut vve do not think that they are
wicked, and we do not rejoice in whatever sutterings we have
to inflict. It is not in tliis way tlut (onventional moralists view
“sinners’'. On the contrary, a belief in sin is held to justify
tluvsc emotions of hatred to which most people are prone. This
IS especially disastrous when it is a whole nation or race or
creed that is thouglit wicked. 'JJie world jm vvhicli we live is
filled witli sucli collective hatreds; and it is they, more than
anything else, that thre^aten mankind with disaster.

An ethical principle may be judgiJ by thc^ kind of emotion
that causes it to be welcomed. By this test, it will be found that
a great many generally recogniz(»d princijiles are not so
lespectablc as they seem. A candid examination will often
show that, whether a principle be valid or not, what makes men
cling to it is that it affords an outlet for some not very noble
passion, more esjiecially cruelty, enw, and pleasure in feeling
superiority. If, on self-cxaininaticm, }(>u find that it is passions
of this sort that cause you to cling to some moral maxim,
that is a quite sufficient reason for a re-examination of your

US

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

convictions in the matter. It is because superstitious ethics so often
spring from such undesirable sources that it is worth while to
combat them, and to accept only such moral rules as seem
likely to promote the general happiness, and to reject all those
which attract us because they cause unhappiness to those whom
we dislike.

144

CHAPTER XMI

Ethical Sanctions

'I II r question with wliii'li we slull bf eoncenu‘(l in this chapter
is.tlie followinijf: Wlial motives (‘\ist, or could be made to
t'xist, to jiromole 'hii^lit” conduct ac'cordino' to the ethic
dc\< lojK^d in previous cha|)ters?’ I v\il] n»|)C‘at once more that I
mean by “rij;ht’' conduct, that conduit wliicli will probably
produce th(‘ j]^reat(\st bahuu'i of satisfav tion o' er dissatisfaction,
or the smallest b.dance of dissali'^faction over satisfaction, and
that, in malving* this estimate, tlie (|ues!ion as to who enjoys llie
satisfaction, o\ sulRrs (iu‘ dis> itiMai tion, is to he considen^d
irrelevant. A few wonK of e\planati(»n are ealled for. I say
‘'satisfai'tion'' rathe i than “pleauire" or ^‘interest''. The term
‘'interest” as (’omnionly employed has ttu) narrow a connota-
ticMi. We should not sa\ that a man is cutine; fnmi self-interest
if, from an impulse of ix*nevolence, ho i^lves his money to
charity, but he iiui} still, if he !ias a generous disposition,
deri\e more satisfaction from tliis a< t than from a miserly
('liriging to liis pos^essions. Inc term “salisfactioid' is wdde
enough to embrace everything that comes to a man through the
rc'alization of liis desii'cs, and thcsi desires do not necessarily
have anj' connection w^ith self, except that (SK\silf fe(d> them.
One may, for instanc'c, desire --I do myself— tliat a proof
should be disccnerc'd for Fermat’s last thcor'cm, and one may be
glad if a brilliant young matbematician given a sufficient
grant to enable him to vse(*k a proof The gratification that one
would feel in this case comes undci die head of satisfaction,
but hardly of self-interest as commonly understood.

Satisfaction, as I mean the w^ord, is not quite the same thing
as pleasure, although it is intimately connected with it. Some

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

experiences have a satisfying quality which goes beyond their
mere pleasurableness; others, on the contrary, although very
pleasurable, do not have that peculiar feeling of fulfilment
which I am calling satisfaction.

Many philosophers have maintained that men always and
invariably seek pleasure, and that even the apparently most
altruistic acts have tliis end in view. Tliis, I think, is a mistake.
It is true, of course, that, \vhate\er j >u may desire, you will
get a certain pleasure when your object is acliieved, but often
the pleasure is due to the desire, not the desire to the expected
pleasure. I'his apjdies especiall}- to tlie simjdest d(‘sires, such as
hunger an<l tliirst. Sati'sfying lumgcr or thirst is a pleasure, but
tlie desire for food or drink is direct, and is noi, e\C(‘pT in a
gourmet, a desire for tlic pleasure which they afflrrd.

It is eusiomary among moralists to urge what is called
“unselfivshncss” and to represent morality as eonsistifig mainly
of self-abnegation. Hus \ie\\, it seems to me, sprinos from a
failure to r(‘ali/e the wide scopt' ol possibl(> dc'siri's. pi'ople’s
desires are wholh ccnieenlrati'd u[)on th(‘msehes. Of this thei'e
is abundant evidem’c in the j)r(‘vaK?Ke of lifi'HnsuraiK'C. F.very
man, of necessity, is aetuate<l by liis own (l(\sir(‘s, w]iate\er
tliey may be, but there is no reason why bi^ desires slkiuld all
be self-centred. N(^r is it alw.ns the case lliat desires (oneorned
with other jieople will lead to Ix'tier ai tions than those that are
more egoisti<' A painter, e\amj)le, may be led by family
affection to paint pot-boilcTs, but it might bi' bmier for tlie
world if he ]iaintcd masterjjieces and let liis family suffer the
di'^eoinforts of comparative poverty. It must be admitted, how-
ever, that the iinmens<‘ majoiity ol mankind have a bias in
favour of their own satisfactions, and tliat oiu' ol th(‘ purposes
of nioralily is to diminish the strength of this hia‘^.

In tliis respect conventional moralists, whose systenn has a
theological basis, consider tlieinselves in a much stre^nger
position than those wdio adopt some such system as I have
been advocating. Locke, for example, is able to get (‘ompletely

1 ^ 6 *

ETHICAL SANCTIONS

satisfactory results by a straightforward appeal to unadul-
terated egoism. lie thinks that tliose* wlio rlo right go to
Heaven and who do wrong go to Hell It follows that the
prudent egoist will do right. IVudencc therefore is the only
virtue that Lockc^ thinks neeessar3\ Bontham, w'lio no longer
believed in Heaven and Hell, tliought that good institutions
here on earth could have inueh the same etieet. Criminals were
to be incarcerated in liis panopticon, which radiated from a
centre and had a skilfully devis(^d system of mirrors so that the
head gaoler, like a sjiider in the inidtlle of his wvh, could view
simuhaneou^lv ail tliat the crimliKils wei'c doing- Tlie head
gaoler in this system n^pia(ed the E^e of (jod When criminals
did right, the}' were rew'aided; when the\ did wrong, tliey
wvre punislied. C\aisef[ueiiily--‘'0 Hentham maintained —they
would all do right. Unfortunately, (-ven if he had obtained all
tlie supjjort for his }»tino|)ticon lluit in his most optimistic
moments he hoped tor, llure would still ha\e been people not
in prison, and for tiicm other arrangements would have been
necessary. N(>r is it (juiie < k‘ar win tlu^ hc^ad gaohT should be
virluous. It cannot he ^aid, therefore, that Beinhom’.-» substitute
for theologiial sanctions is wliolly salisfain)ry.

Religious r)anc lions, allliough hi theor\ tliev mav seem
adc'juate, ha\e not been feuiid s(' in j)ra( Brudeme is about
as ddlu'ult as any other \iniie, and it is to prudence, as we have
seen, that I^oeke .ij»peals. In the Ages of Eaitli, when men
really believed tlnit mortal shi, / ;l follow^ed b} absolution,
would lead to Hell, Jinirder and rape^ weiv much (ommoncr
than they are in the VW'siern Woild at the present day, as
anybody maj’ see b} reading any mediaeval cltronicle. Men who
are fierce and impulsive will, luider the influence of passion,
behave in imj^rudent ways, lH>w'over obvious the imprudence
might be to them in calmer moments. Modern theologians, by
softening tlie dogma of Eternal Damnation, have very much
diminished the fi>rce of tlie old sanctions; and even those wdio
still accept them know tliat there are ways of circumventing

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND TOUTICS

them. I once in a train got into conversation with an Irish-
American politician, a man of exemplary devoutness and a good
son of the Church. He assured me, with increasing fervour as
he drank liis whisky, that he had the greatest affection for his
wife and children, but never neglected opportunities for sur-
reptitious fornication, for which, in due course, lie would
obtain absolution. No one can deny that siu'li casc.s are ex-
tremely common. It would seem theTcfore that the old sanc-
tions are largely ineffective evfm in the matters on wliich they
lay most stress.

There is, in fact, no method by which wq can make sure that
everybody will always be xirtuous. The question of sanctions
is therefore ciuantitative. Some syst(*ms produtc more virtue,
and some loss; some ethical doctrines are more conducive to
socidlly desirable condiu t, and (Uliers less. Broadly s{)eaking,
one may say that the object of tlu' moralist and of the politician
should be to produce the greatest possible conformity of
individual and general satisfaction, so that as lar as ufHy be the
ads to W'liich a man is prompted by ])ursuit oi’his ow^n satisfac-
tion are those which bring satisfaction to others How far such
conformity will exist in any gi\en society depends uj)on
various factcu's, of which three may be singled out as specially
important. They are: (a) the social system; (h) the nature of
individual desires; and (c) tlie canons of praise and blame. Of
these three, the social system is j’^robably the most impc^rlant.
It is obvious that peo])Ie behave differently in an anarchic
community, siu'h as a mining town during a gold-rush, from
the way in which they behave in a community where the
criminal law is effective and w'cll established. It is obvious also
that different communities offer diffei'ent opportunities for
persona] success. If 3011 are one of a gang of pirat(^s, the
methods by which you become their leader are quite different
from those which you must pursue if you are a Fellow of a
College and wisli to become its Head. In a well ordered com-
munity, personal success will be the reward of actions that are

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ETHICAL SANCTIONS

generally useful; whereas, in an anarchic community, they will
be tlie reward of cunning, brutality and quick violence. But this
is a large subject which I will not jmrsuc further at i)rescnt.

Individual desires, which determine individual conduct, can
themselves be modified to a ver}' great extent by education,
fashion, and opportunity. It is clear that such modification, in so
far as it is deliberate, should be in the direction of making
individual desires as far as j)Ossiblc in conformity with the
general good. To a very great exte^nt this liappens in all
civilized communities. 'The butcher and the baker minister to
m} happiness, not Ixrausc they low me, but because the eco-
nomic system makes what serves me useful to them. There are
how’ever in every community a greater or smaller number of
peoj)lc who are actuated h} socially undesirnble motives of
hatred, or anger, or en\y, or direct impulse to violenc'c. It
should be the busin(‘ss of psychologists and othei's to asc'ertain
the causes of anti-social impulses and to endeaxour to remove
llieni. This is a matter to be treated by tlic* metliods of the
scientist, ratlier than by those of die traditional moralist.
Traditional moralists lia\e belie\cxl too much in the efficacy of
preaching and explicit exliortatic»n, and too little in the scien-
tific investigation of [isychologic'al causation. This has been
bound up witli an undue emphasis u])(>n sin and fi'ee-vvill.
Many character defects are as Jiitle tcr be c ured by preaching as
are bodily ailments. It is diflicult to set limits to what could be
done in the way of moral iinproxement of inclix iduals if the
matter were studied w'ith the same care and in the same spirit
with which the medical profession studies physic’al heallh.

Praise and blame* as allotted by public <^j)inion have an
enormous cftec I upon conduct, but this ePbet is by^ no means
always good. Napoleon was admirc'd, not only by" tlic French,
but by many pcojile in llie nations wliic*h he conquered, such as
the (xermans and Italians. What applies to suc.li men in an
eminent degree, applies in lesser measure to lesser men. Forms
of success which are not socially useful are praised, and wdierever

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

a superstitious ethic exists acts which do no harm are apt to be
blamed.

In all these ways, ethical sanctions may be belter or worse.
In all these ways they arc very powerful. Given good institu-
tions, and a socially desirable ethic, and a sc'ientific under-
standing of the training of individual character, it would be
possible for conflicts between individual and gt'neral satisfac-
tion to become very rare. To secure diis result should be the
supreme aim of those who ondea\our to create a happy human
society.

In Western communities as tl»ey exist at the present day a
very considerable measure of harmony between individual and
general satisfactions has already been achieved, so long as wc
confine ourselves to the internal aftaiis of the community and
ignore its relations to possibly hostile countries, 'rhe first step
in producing this harmony is the criminal law, which makes it
against the interests of all but a very few individuals to indulge
in such activities as murder and thc'ft. The next most tinportant
factor is the ncctxssity to earn a living. As a gt'nt‘i\d rule people
are not yund for work unh's'j it is thought useful, and work
covers a large part of most meirs davs. 'J he next factor in pro-
moting what a communit\ (considers good behaviour is the
awarding of praise* ami blanu* IVople like to be admired and
do nut like to be hated. This motive, however, as we liave
already seen, mav have* bad eflecTs if the standards by which tlie
community awards praise and blame arc* inadeciuate or mis-
taken.

Apart from these ways in which self-regarding motives can
be made generally useful, there arc' in most human beings
direct impulses eoiic(*rned vvith other j^eojile. These may be
impulses of hate, and then in all likelihood do liarm. But sucli
motives as family allection and fricnidship are c'ommon except in
times of very unusual stress. There is al.^o, more commonly I
think than is sometimes realized, a motive of general benevo-
lence, which comes to the fore in times of large natural disasters

l.W

ETHICAL SANCTIONS

such as floods and earthquakes. And lastly, though this is as apt
to be bad in its effects as to be good, there is pride in one's
group — family or city or nation or whatever it may be. These
motives are quite as much part of ordinar}^ human nature as the
purely self-regarding motives.

For the above reasons most people in the better communities
of the present day are already engaged, as regards most of
their activities, in ways that are useful to others as well as to
tUemselves. This is not bei aiise the moral law enjoins unselfish-
ness, but because, given the society in which tlicy live, it is the
wa\ in which their impulses and desires promj)t them 1(» act. It
is clear that better institutions, better education of the emotions,
and a bc^tter apportioning of praise and blame, would increase
the alrc'ady considerable ^*xtent to which people’s actions
further the well-being of their emmuunity. It is to sudi causes,
latber than to a re\ivtd belief in supernatural sanctions, that
we must look for ethical jirogiess.

151

PART TWO •

THE CONFLICT OF PASSIONS

CHAPTER r

From Ethics to Politics

THE somewhat abstract ethical coHMclerations with which we
have been concerned in preceding chapters might make it seem,
if put before a person ignorant of human history, as if the road
to universal contentment were easy and obvious. It is only
necessary that the desires actuating the conduct of indhiduals
anil groups should be conipossible desires and not sucli as, by
their very natui e, invoh'e the thwarting of others. It w^ould not
be b}" any means imj)Ossible to secure that this should be so,
apart from comparatively unimportant (exceptions. Men's
desires are not an immutable datum. They are afiected by cir-
cumstances and education and o})portunity. With the skills
that we at prcs(*nt possess, and by the diffusion of the know-
ledge possessed by economists and sociologists, the more
destructive passions could be relegated to a pc»sition no more
important than that occupied at j>resent by the passions which
lead men to private murdei If this were doin', the whole world
could before long achiov'e a measure' of contentment and a
general diffusion ot happiness such as has not been known since
organized scx'iety began.

But in the real world things are different from this. Tlie
springs of action, as they are to be found in history and in the
present day, are very largely sueh as demand defeat for others.
There is love of power, there is rivalry, tlcTc is hate, and, I
am afraid we must add, a positive ')h'asure in the spectacle of
suffering. These passiems are so strong that tliey have not only
governed the behaviour of societies, but have caused hatred of
those who spoke against them. When Christ told men that
they should love each other. He pioduced such fury that the

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

mob shouted, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Christians ever
since have followed the mob rather than the Founder of their
religion. Nor have those who are not Christians been in any
way behind-hand. Malenkov and Senator McCarthy are both
carrying on the good work in the spirit of the mob w^hich
demanded the Crucifixion. Intelligence has been used, not to
tame the passions, but to give them scope. From the earliest
beginnings of civilization, there has been slavery inflicted by
the powerful upon the weak. In almost all peasant communities
the hard work is left to women, not becaust' they are more fit to
do it than men, but solely bciause the}- have less muscle and
are tlicrefore less fit. Throughout past history power lias been
used to give to tlie strong an undue sliarc* of good things and
to lea\e to the weak a life of toil and misery.

Rivalry has been ecjually disastrous. I am not thinking of its
humbler forms in iiidixidual competition for wealth and social
eminence. I am thinking, rather, of the rivalr}^ beiwet^n organ-
ized groups which is the source of war. ♦

It cannot be said that the woiltl as a whole has imjinncd in
regard to these matters. Wliile men were few and social
organization had not crystallized, there was hunger, and
there was danger fix'iii wild beasts, but, until forethought had
bceoiiie a habit, hapjniiess was possible at the times when
hunger and danger wcm'c not present. As society became more
organized, the intervals of careless happiness became for the
majority more and more rare. I do not tliink that the sum of
human misery has ever in the past been as great as during the
last twenty-five yc*ars. There was the Nazi cainjiaign for the
extermination of Jews, there w^as the extermination by starva-
tion of millions of Russian peasants, there were the great
purges, and there are the vast cainjis of forced labour. And. as
if this wxTC not enough, the last few years have seem the
extension of tlu^ same system to China. It can hardly be pre-
tended that the Westeni Nations are redressing the balance by
an increase of happiness, for there hangs over them all the

166

FROM ETHICS TO POLITICS

dreadful threat of a war conducted by means of atomic and
hydrogen bombs and with all the new refinements of cruelty
that modern prist>n-camps have introduced.

The study of history from the building of the pyramids to the
present day is not (‘iicouraging for any Iminane person. At
various times there liavc been men wlio saw what was good,
but they did not succeed in altering the pattern of human
beliaviour. Buddlia, as much as Christ, tauglit universal love,
buj; in the end the inliabilants of Inrlia preferred Siva. St.
Francis was gentle in his doctrines, but his immediate disciples
became recruitiiig sergeants in a very sax age war. There is so
strong a tendency in human nature towards the fiercer passions
tliat those wlio onposi' them almost always Incur liatred, and
that whole systems of morals and theology are invented to
make peofde feel that saxagery is noble.

Such considerations make the application of ethic'S to politics
difficult —so difficult as to seem at times almost futile. But w'e
have real lied a moment in human history in whii'h, for the first
time, the mcTC continued esistenre of the human race lias come
to dejiend upon the extent to which liiiman beings can learn to
be sxvayed by ethical considerations. If wc continue to allow
scope to destructive passions, our increasing skill must bring
us all to disaster, (hie must tlierefore liope, xvitli as much
conficlcMice as one can iruisKr, that even on (he blink of final
and utter catastrophe mankind xxill jniusc to reflect, and to
realize that perliaps oxen the well icing c'f those xvhom we
liate w^oulcl not be too idgh a price to jiay for our own con-
tinued existence.

It is not as if the destructive passions brc'iiglit real happiness.
Slave owners lived in dread of serxilc insurrections, rix'al
armed nations are obsessed by the fear of defeat in w^ar. All
who profit by injustice liave to curb their more generous
emotions, and remain ignorant of some of the greatest joys
that human life has to offer.

In the following chapters, w^hich xxill be concerned with the

157

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

conflict of organized passions since civilization began and with
the loss of happiness that this conflict has brought, we shall
have to consider why njen have hitherto used their intelligence
to make a world tliat only a few could enjoy and tliat, to most,
involved a life much more miserable tlum that of wild animals.
Until we understand why this has been so, w^e cannot hope to
find any way of making ethical doctrines eifective. Whatever in
the following chapters may seem gloomy or liable to produce
discouragement has as its sole purpose the discovery t>f ways
by which mankind can be induced to allow itself to b*' happy.
The problem should not be insoluble, for, after all, the main
appeal can be to self-interest- There are very few who are the
liappier for w'hat is wrong with the world. Among those few,
it is true, there are some w’ho have great power; but they have
power largely because men are blind. It is intelligence, accept-
ing our j^assions as unalterable, which has brought the world
into its present perilous condition. But our passions are not
unalterable. Less skill is required to alter them th^m has been
expended on the transmutatk>n of elements, I cannot bring
myself to believe that the human race, which has in some
directions shown such extraordinary skill, is in other directions
so unalterably stupid as to insist upon its own torment and
destruction. Our age is glocmiy. but perhaps the very fears that
it inspires may become a source of w^isdom. If this is to happen,
mankind must, throughout the dangerous years to come, avoid
yielding to desj)air, and keep alive the hope of a future far
better than anything in the past. This is not impossible. It can
be done if men choose to do it.

158

CHAPTER 15

Politically Important Desires

I WILL begin the discussion of piditical theory with this
si^bjcct because I think tliat most current discussions of politics
and political thcoiy take insufficient account of psychology.
Economic facts population statistic.-^, constitutional organiza-
tion, and so on, are set forth minutely. There is no difliculty
in finding out how’ many Soulli Koreans and how many North
Koreans there were when the Korean War began. If you will
look into the right books you will b(* able to ascertain what was
their a\Trage income per head, and what were the sizes of
iheir respective armies. But if you want to know what sort of
person a Kenyan is, and whether there is any appreciable
difference between a North lum'an and a wSouth Korean; if you
wish to know what th(w respectively want out of life, wffiat are
their discontents, what their hopes and what their fears; in a
word, what it is that, as tliey say, ‘'makes them tick”, you will
look through the reference books in vain. .^Vnd so you cannot
tell whether the South Kouaiis are c^nthusiastic about UNO, or
would prefer union with their cousins m tlie North. Nor can
you guess whether they are willim to forgo land reibrm for
the privilege of voting for some politician they hav^^ never
heard of. It is neglect of such (giestions by the eminent men
who sit in remote capitals, that so frequently causes disappoint-
ment. If politics is to bc<’ome scientific, and if the event is not
to be constantly surprising, it is imperative that our political
thinking should penetrate more dc» piy into the springs of
human action. What is the influence of hunger uj)on slogans.?
IIow does their effectiveness fluctuate witli the number of
calories in your diet? If one man otters you democracy and

159

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation
will you prefer the griin to tlie vote? Such questions are far too
little considered. However, let us, for the present, forget the
Koreans, and consider the human race.

All human activity is prompted by desire or impulse. There
is a wholly fallacious theory advanced by some earnest moralists
to the effect that it is possible to resist desire in the interests of
duty and moral principle. I say this is fallacious, not bec'ause no
man ever acts from a sense of duty, 1 ut because duty has no
hold on liim unless he desires to be dutiful. If you wish to know
what men will do, you must know not only, or principally, their
material circumstances, but rather the whole system of their
desires with their relative strengths.

There are some desires w^hich, thougli veiy j)owerful, have
not, as a rule, any great poUiiral imi)()rtance. Most men at
some period of their liv(‘s d(‘sire to marry, but as a rule they
can satisfy this desire without ha\ing to take any [)olitical
action. There aie, of course, exeeq^tions; the rape of the Sabine
women is a case in point And the d<*velopmeiit of Northern
Australia is seriously impeded by the fact that the vigorous
young men who ought to do t!i(‘ work dislike being w’holly
depri\ed of female society. Rut such cases are unusual, and in
general the int(Test that men and wouk'ii take in each other has
little influence upon ])olilics.

The desires that are politically iin]X)rtant ma}^ be divided into
a primary and a secondaiy group. In the primary group come
the necessities of life: food and shelter and clothing. When
these tilings become very scarce, there is no limit to the efforts
that men will make, or to the violence that they will di.splay, in
the hope of securing them. It is said by students of the earliest
history that, on four separate occasions, drought in Arabia
caused the population ot that country to overflow into surround-
ing regions, with imm(»nsc ('fleets jiolitical, cultural and reli-
gious. The last of these four occasions was the rise of Islam.
The gradual spread of Germanic irihes from Southern Russia

POLITICALLY IMPORTANT DESIRES

to England, and thence to San Francisco, had similar motives.
Undoubtedly the desire for food has been, and still is, one of
the main causes of great political events.

But man differs from other animals in one very important
respect, and that is that he has some desires which are, so to
speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which
would keep him restless even in Paradise. The boa constrictor,
when he has had an adeejuate meal, goes to sleep, and does not
wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most
part, are not like this. When the Arabs, who had been used to
living sparingly on a few dates, acquired the riches of the
Eastern Roman Empire, and dwelt in palaces of almost unbe-
lievable luxury, they did not, on that account, become inactive.
Hunger could no longer be a motive, for Greek slaves supplied
them with exquisite viands at the slightest nod. But other
desires kept them active: four in particular, which we can label
accpjisitivcness, rivalry, vanity, and love of power.

Acquisitiveness — tlie wisli to possess as much as possible of
goods, or the title to goods — is a motive which, I suppose, has
its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries.
I once befriended two little girls from Esthonia, who had nar-
rowly escaped death from starvation in a famine. They lived in
my family, and of course had plenty to eat. But they spent all
their leisure visiting neighbouring farms and stealing potatoes,
which they hoarded. Rockefeller, who in his infancy had experi-
enced great povert3% s})ent his adult life in a similar manner.
Similarly the A.rab chieftains on thnr silken Byzantine divans
could not forget the desert, and hoarded riches far beyond any
possible physical need. But wdiatever may be the psychoanalysis
of acquisitiveness, no one can deny that it is one of the great
motives — especially among the more powerful, for, as I said
before, it is one of the infinite motives. However much you
may acquire, you will always wish to acquire more; satiety is
a dream which will always elude you.

But acquisitiveness, although it is the mainspring of the

K)1

L

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

capitalist system, is by no means the most powerful of the
motives that survive the conquest of hunger. Rivalry is a much
stronger motive. Over and over again in Mohammedan hiwS-
tory, dynasties have come to grief bccai^se the sons of a sultan
by different mothers could not agree, and in the resulting civil
war universal ruin resulted. The same sort of thing happens in
modern Europe. When the British Government very unwisely
allowed the Kaiser to be j^rcsent at a naval review at Spithcad,
the thought which arose in his mind wis not the one wiiich we
had intended. What he thought w^as: “I must have a Navy as
good as Cjrandmainina’s". And from this thought have sprung
all our subse(]uent troubles. The world would be a happier
place thaii it is if acquisitiveness were always stronger than
rivalry. But in fact, a great many men will cheerfully face
impoverishment if tliey can thereby secure complete ruin for
their ri\als. Hence the present level of taxation.

Vanit} is a motive of immense potency. Anyone who has
much to do with (liildren know's how they are ccmstantly {)er-
forming some antic, and saving ‘"I^ook at me'’. "Loolf at me”
is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart. It
can take innumerable forms, from huffoonery to the pursuit of
posthumous fame. There svas a Hcsiaissanee Italian princeling
who was askc'd by tlie priest on liis dcatlibed if he had anything
to cc‘pc*nt of. ”Yes”, h»' said. ‘‘TIkto is one thing. On one
occasion I liad a \isit fr<»m tlie Emperor and the Pope simul-
taneously. I t(X)k them to the top of my lower tv) see th(' view',
and I neglected the ojj])ortunity to throw them both dow'ii,
whic'h would have given me immortal fame.” History does not
relate^ wlu^lher th(' priest gave him absolution. One of the
troubles about vanit}'^ is that it grows with w'hat it feeds on.
The more you are talked aboul, the more you w'ill wish to he
talked aboul. Thv condemned murderer wlio is allowed to see.
the accoiuit of liis trial in the Press is indignant if he finds a
newspaper which has n^ported it inadequately. And the more
ho finds about himself in other new%spapcrs, tlie more indignant

H)2

POLITICALLY IMPORTANT DKSIHES

he will be with the one whose reports are meagre. Politicians
and literary men are in the same case. 'And the more famous
they become, the more difficult the press cutting agency finds
it to satisfy lliein. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate tlie
influence of vanity througliout the range of human life, from
the child of lliree to tlie potentate at whose frown tfie world
trembles. Mankind have even committed the impiety of attri-
buting similar desires to the Deity, whc>in they imagine avid
for continual j)raise.

But great as is the influence of the motives we liave been
considering, tliere is one whicli outweighs them all. I mean the
love of power. Love of power is closely akin to vanity, but it is
not by any means the same tiling. What vanity needs for its
satisfaction is glory, arul it is easy to have glory without power.
The people who enjoy the greatest glory in tlie I'nited States
are film stars, but tluw van be put in tlieir place by the Com-
mittee for Un-AiiUM'ican Activities, v\hich enjojs no glory
whatever. In England, the King has more ghiry than the
Prime Minister, but the Prime* Minister has more power than
the King. Many jieojile preft*r glory to power, but on the whole
these people have less efi'ect upon the course of events than
those who jirefer power to glory. Wlien Bliicher, in IS 14, saw
Napoleon’s palaces, he said: “Wasn’t he a fool to ha\e all this
and to go running after Mosiow.'* Napoleon, who certainly
was not destitute* of vanity, pri'ferred jxiwer when he liad to
choose. To BlQdiei, this choice seemed foolish. Power, like
vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short ot omnipotence could
satisfy it completely. And as it i.s especially the vice of energetic
men, the ('ausal etlicacy love of power is out of all proportion
to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the
lives of important men.

Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of
power, and this applies to petty power as w’ell as to that of
potentates. In the happy days before 1914, when w^ll-to-do
ladies could accjuire a host of servants, their jdeasure in

1673

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

exercising power over the domestics steadily increased with
age. Similarly, in any autocratic regime, the holders of power
become increasingly tyrannical with experience of the delights
that power can afford. Since power over human beings is
shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the
man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict
pain than to permit pleasure. If you ask your boss for leave of
absence from the office on some legitimate occasion, his love of
power will derive more satisfaction from a refusal than from a
consent. If you require a building permit, the petty official
concerned will obviously get more pleasure from sa}ing ‘‘No"
than from saying "Yes". It is this sort of thing which makes
the love of power siu h a dangerous motive.

But it has other sides which are more desirable, 'fhe pursuit
of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuatcil by love of power.
And so are all advances in scientific teclinique. In politics, also,
a reformer may have just as strong a love of powTT as a despot.
It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power alto-
gether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to
actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious,
depends upon the social svstem, and upon your capacities. If
your capacities are tlieoretical or technical, you will contribute
to knowledge or technique, and, as a rule, your activity will be
useful. If you arc a politician you may be ailuated by love of
power, but as a rule this motive will join itself on to the desire
to see some state of affairs realized which, for some reason, you
prefer to the status quo, A great general may, like Alcibiades,
be quite indifferent as to which side he fights on, but most
generals liave preferred to fight for their own country, and
have, therefore, had other motives besides love of j)ower. The
politician may change sides so frequently as to find himself
always in the majority, but most politicians have a preference
for one party to the other, and subordinate their love of power
to this preference. Love of power as nearly pure as possible is
to be seen in various different types of men. One type is the

164

POLITICALLY IMPOKTANT DESIRES

soldier of fortune, of whom Napoleon is the supreme example.
Napoleon had, I tliink, no ideological preference for France
over Corsica, but if he had become Emperor of Corsica he
would not have been so great a man as he became by pretending
to be a Frenchman. Such men, however, are not quite pure
examples, since they also derive immense satisfaction from
vanity. The purest type is tliat of the Eminence Grise— the
power behind the throne that never appears in public, and
merely hugs itself with the secret thouglit: "How' little tlicse
puppets know who is pulling the strings." Baron Holstein, who
ccntrolled the foi eign policy of the German Empire from 1890
to 1906’, illustrates this type to perfection. He lived in a slum;
he never appt^ared in society ; he avoided meeting the Emperor,
except on one single occasion when the Emperor's importunity
could not be resisted; he refused all invitations to Court func-
tions, on the ground that lie j)ossess(*d no court dress. He had
acciuircd secrets vvhic'h enabled him to blackmail the Chancellor
and manj of tlie Kaiser’s intimates. He used the power of
blackmail, not to acejuire wc^alth, or fame, or any otlier obvious
advantage, but merely to compel tlie adoption of the foreign
policy he preferred. In tlie East, similar c haracters were not
very unc ommem among eunuchs.

I come now to other motives which, though in a sense less
fundamental than those wt have been considering, are still of
considerable importance, I'hc first of these is love c^f excite-
ment. Human beings show their iperiority to the brutes by
their caj)acity for boredom, though I have sometimes thought,
in examining the apes at tlie Zoo, that they, perhaps, liavc the
rudiments of this tiresome emotion. However tliat may be,
experience sliow^s that escape from boredom is one of the really
powerful desires of almost all human beings. When white men
first effect contact with some unspoilt race of savages, they
offer them all kinds of benefits, from the light of the Gospel to
pumpkin pic. These, however, much as we may regret it, most
savages receive with indifference. What they really value

165

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

among the gifts that we bring to them is intoxicating liquor,
which enables them, for the first time in their lives, to have the
illusion, for a few brief moments, that it is better to be alive
than dead. Red Indians, wliile they were still unaftected by
white men, would smoke their pipes, not calmly as we do, but
orgiastically, inhaling so deeply dial they sank into a faint. And
wlien excitement by means of nicotine failed, a patriotic orator
would stir them up to attack a neighbouring tribe, which would
give tlicm all the enjoyment that we (according to our tempera-
ment) derive from a horse race or a General Election. The
pleasure of gambling consists almost entirely in excitement.
Monsieur Hue describes Chin(*se traders at the (h*eat V/all in
winter, gambling until they have lost all their ('ash, then pro-
ceeding to lose all their merchandise, and at last gambling
away their clothes and going out naked to die of cold. With
civilized men, as with primitive Red Indian tribes, it is, I think,
chiefly love of e\('itcment which makes the ])opulace applaud
w^hen war breaks out; the emotion is exactly the saioiL* as at a
football match, although the results arc sometimes somewhat
more serious.

It is not altogether eas'', to decide what is the root cause of
the love of excitenu'nt. I incline to think that our mental
make-up is adaj»tcd to the stage when men lived by hunting.
When a man spent a long da}' with ver}' primitive weapons in
stalking a deer with tlie h<jpe of dinner, and when, at the end of
the day, he dragged the carcase triumphantly to his cave, he
sank down in contented weariness, while his wife dressed and
cooked the meat. He was sleepy, and his bones ached, and the
smell of cooking filled every nook and cranny of his conscious-
ness. At last, after eating, he sank into deep sleep. In such a
life there was neither lime nor energy for boredom. But when
he took to agriculture, and made his wife do all the heavy
work in the fields, he had time to reflect upon the vanity of
human life, to invent mythologies and systems of jihilosophy,
and to dream of the life hereafter in which he would perpetually

POLITIC AI,I.Y IMPORTANT DESIRES

hunt tlie wild boar of Valhalla. Our mental make-up is suited to
a life of very severe physical labour. I used, when I was younger,
to take iny holidays walking. I would cover twenty-five miles a
day, and when the evening came I had no need of anytliing to
keep me from boredom, since the delight of sitting amply
sufficed. But modern life cannot be conducted on these pliysi-
cally strenuous principles. A grc‘at deal of woik is sedentary,
and most manual wH)rk exercises only a few specialized muscles.
When crowds assembU* in Trafalgar Stjuare to cheer to the
echo an announcement that the go\(Tnment has decided to have
tlv'm killed, they would not do so if they had all walked twent}'-
five miles that day. This cure for bellii'osily is, however,
impracticable, and if the human race is to survive — a thing
which is, perhaps, undesirable — other means must be found for
securing an innocent outlet for the unused plnsical energy that
produces lo\(‘ of excitement. This is a marier whieh has been
too little ('onsid(‘r(*d, botli by moralists ajid by soc ial reformers.
The social reformers are of the opinion that they have more
serious things to consider. The moralists, on the other hand,
are immensely impressed with the seriousness of all the per-
miited outlets of tlie love of excitement ; tlie seriousness, how-
ever, in th<*ir minds, is that of vSin. Dance hails, cinemas, this
age of jazz, are all, if we may belic\e our ears, gatew ays to Hell,
and we should he better employed sitting at home contem-
plating our sins. I find myself unable to be in (‘iitire agreement
witli the gravx^ men who utter the^e warnings. The devil has
many fibrins, some designed to deceive tlie \c)ung, some
designed to deceiv^e the old and serious. If it is the devil that
tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, jxThaps, the
same j)crsonage that persuades the old to condemn their
enjoyment.^ And is not condemnation perliups merely a form
of excitement appropriate to old age And is it not, perhaps, a
drug wdiieh — like opium — has to be taken in continually
stronger doses to produce the desired eftect.? Is it not to be
feared that, beginiiing with the wickedness of the cinema, we

16*7

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

should be led step by step to condemn the opposite political
party, dagoes, wops, Asiatics, and, in short, everybody except
the fellow members of our club? And it is from just such con-
demnations, when widespread, that wars proceed. I have never
heard of a war that proceeded from dance halls.

What is serious about excitement is that so many of its
forms are destructive. It is destructive in those who cannot
resist excess in alcohol or gambling. It is destructive when it
takes the form of mob violence. And above all it is destructive
when it leads to war. It is so deep a need that it will find
harmful outlets of this kind unless innocent outlets are at
hand. There are such innocent outlets at present in sport, and
in politics so long as it is kept within constitutional bounds.
But these are not sufficient, especially as the kind of politics
that is most exciting is also the kind that does most harm.
Civilized life has grown altogether too tame, and, if it is to be
stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which
our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting. In Australia, where
people are few and rabbits are many, I w^atched a wliole popu-
lace satisfying the primiti\e impulse in the primitive manner
by the skilful slaughter of many thousands of rabbits. But in
London or New York, wnere people are many and rabbits are
few, some other means must be found to gratify primitive
impulse. I think every big tow^n .should contain artificial water-
falls that people could descend in very fragile canoes, and they
should contain bathing pools full of met hanical sharks. Any
person found advocating a preventive war should be condemned
to two hours a day with the.se ingenious monsters. More
seriously, jiains should be taken to provide constructive outlets
for the love of excitement. Notliing in tlie world is more
exciting than a moment of sudden discovery or invention, and
man}^ more people are capable of experiencing such moments
than is sometimes thought.

Interwoven wdth many other political motives are two closely
related passions to which human beings are regrettably prone:

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POLITICALLY IMPORTANT DESIRES

I mean fear and hate. It is normal to hate what we fear, and it
happens frequently, though not always,* that we fear what we
hate. I think it may be taken as the rule among primitive men,
that they both fear and hate whatever is unfamiliar. They have
their own herd, originally a very small one. And within one
herd, all are friends, unless there is some special ground of
enmity. Other herds are potential or actual enemies; a single
member of one of them wlio strays by accident will be killed.
An alien herd as a whole will be avoided or hnight according
to circumstances. It is this primitive mechanism which still
controls our instinctive* reaction to foreign nations. The com-
pletely untravelled person will view all foreigners as the
savage regards a member of another herd. But the man who
has travelled, or wlut has studied intcTnational pcditics, v.ill
have discovered that, if his herd is to prosper, it must, to some
degree, become amalgamated with other herds. If you are
English and someone sa\s to you: “I'he French are your
brothers"', }our first instinctive feeling will be. ^‘Nonsense,
they shrug their vshoulders, and talk French. And I am even
told that they eat frogs," If he explains to jou that wo may
have to fight the Russians, that, if so, it w^ill be desirable to
defend the line of the Rhine, and that, if the line of tlu^ Rhine
is to be defended, the help of the Frc'nch is essential, you will
begin to see what he mer 'S wlicn he says tliat th(* French are
your brothers. But if some fellow-tra\ oiler were to go on to
say that the Russians also are } mr brothers, he would be
unable to persuade yon, unless he could show that ve are in
danger from the Maitians. We love those* who hate our
('iiemies, and if we had no enemies there would be very few'
people whom we should love.

All this, howcwcr, is only true so long is we are con-
cerned solely with attitudes toward v>ther human beings. Vou
might regard the soil as your enemy because it yields reluctantly
a niggardly subsistence You might regal'd Mother Nature in
general as your enemy, and envisage human life as a struggle

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

to get the better of Mother Nature. If men viewed life in this
way, co-operation of the whole human race would become easy.
And men could easily be brought to view life in this way if
schools, newspapers, and politicians devoted themselves to this
end. But scliools are out to teach patriotism; ncwsj)apers are
out to stir up excitement; and politicians are out to get re-
elected. None of the three, therefore, can do anything towards
saving the human race from reciprocal suicide.

There are two ways of coping with fear: one is to diminish
the external danger, and tlie other is to cultivate Stoic endur-
ance. The latter can be reinforced, except where immediate
action is nec'essary, by turning our thoughts away from the
cause of fear. The ('onquest of fear is of very great importance.
Fear is in itself degrading; it easily becomes an obsession: it
produces hate of that which is feared, and it h'ads headlong to
excesses of cruelty. Nothing lias so beneficent an c^ftect on
human beings as security. If an international system could be
established which would remove the fear of war, the im[>ro\e-
ment in the (‘\er}day mentality of everyday pc»>ple would be
enormous and very rapid. Fear, at present, overshadows the
world. The atom bomb and the bacterial bomb, wielded by the
wicked communist or the wicked capitalist as the case may be,
makes Washington and the Kremlin tremble, and drives men
furtlier and further along the road towards the abyss. If matters
are to improve, the first and essential step is to find a way of
diminishing fear. The world at jiresent is obsessed by the
conflict of rival ideologies, and one of the ajiparent causes of
conflict is the desire for the victory of our own ideology and
the defeat of the other. I do not think that the fundamental
motive here has much to do with ideologies. I think the ideo-
logies are merely a way of grouping people, and that the
passions involved are merely those which always arise betweeii
rival groups. There are, of course, various reasons for hating
communists. First and foremost, we believe that they wish to
take away our property. But so do burglars, and although we

170

POLITICALLY IMPORTANT DESIRES

disapprove of burglars, our attitude towards them is very
different indeed from our attitude towards communists —
chiefly because they do not inspire the same degree of fear.
Secondly, we hate the communists because they are irreligious.
But the Chinese have been irreligious since the eleventh cen-
tury, and we only began to hate them when they turned out
Chiang Kai-shek. Thirdly, we hate the communists because
they do not believe in democracy, but we consider this no
reason for hating Franco. Fourthly, we hate them because they
do not allow liberty; this wc feel so strongly that we have
decided to imitate them. It is obvious that none of tliesc are the
real grounds for our haired. We hate them because we fear
them and they threaten us. If the Russians still adhered to the
Greek Orthcjdox religion, if they had instituted parliamentary
government, and if they had a completely free press which
daily vituperated us, then — provided they still had armed
forces as poweriiil as they have now— we should still hate them
if thc'y gave us ground for thinking them hostile. There is, of
course, the oJiuin theologiciim^ and it can be a cause of enmity.
Rut I think that this is an offshoot of herd feeling: the man who
lias a different theology feels strange, and whatever is strange
must be dangerous. Ideologies, in fact, are one of the methods
by which herds arc created, and the psychology is much the
same however the lu'rd nidy have been generated.

You may have been feeling that I have allowed only for bad
motives, or, at best, such as are t diically neutral. I am afraid
they are, as a rule, more jiowerlul than more altruistic motives,
but I do not deny that altruistic motives exist, and may, on
occasion, be effective. The agitation against slavery in England
in the <‘arly nineteenth century was indubitably altruistic, and
was thoroughly effective. Its altruism was proved by the fact
that in 183^5 British taxpayers paid many millions in com-
pensation to Jamaican landowners for the liberation of their
slavCvS, and also by the fact that at the Congiess of Vienna
the British (iovcTiiment was prepared to make important

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

concessions with a view to inducing other natibns to abandon the
slave trade. This is an instance from the past, but present day
America has afforded instances equally remarkable. I will not,
however, go into these, as I do not wish to become embarked
in current controversies.

I do not think it can be questioned that sympathy is a genuine
motive, and that some people at some times are made some-
what uncomfortable by the sufferings of some other people. It
is sympathy that has produced the many humanitarian advances
of the last hundred years. We are shocked when we hear
stories of the ill-treatment of lunatics, and there are now quite
a number of asylums in which they are not ill-treated. Prisoners
in Western countries are not supposed to be tortured, and
when the}^ are, there is an outcry if the facts are discovered.
We do not approve of treating orphans as they are treated in
Oliver TiKist, Ih'olcstant countries disapprove of cruelty to
animals. In all these ways .sympathy has been ])olitically
effective. If tlie fear of war w^ere removed, its efli:(‘tiv('ness
would become much greater. Perhaps the best hope for the
future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the
scope and intensity of sympathy.

To sum up our discussion: Politics is concerned with herds
rather tlian with individuals, and the passions w^hich are impor-
tant in politics are, therefore, tliose in which the various
members of a given herd can feel alike. The broad instinctive
mechanism upon w^hich pohlic'al edifices have to be built is one
of co-o])eration within the herd and hostility towards other
herds. The co-operation wuthin the herd is never perfect.
There are members who do not conform, who are, in the
etymological sense, ‘"egregious", that is to say, outside the
flock. These member.> arc those wlio have fallen below, or
risen above, the ordinary level. They are: idiots, criminals,
prophets, and discoverers. A wise herd will learn to tolerate
the eccentricity of those who rise above the average, and to
treat with a minimum of ferocity tliose who fall below it.

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POLITICALLY IMPORTANT DESIRES

As regards relations to other herds, modem technique has
produced a conflict between self-interest and instinct. In old
days, wlien two tribes went to war, one of them exterminated
the other, and annexed its territory. From the point of view of
the victor, the whole operation was thoroughly satisfactory.
The killing was not at all expensive, and the excitement was
agreeable. It is not to be wondered at that, in such circumstances,
war persisted. Unfortunately we still have the emotions appro-
priate to such primitive warfare, while the actual operations of
war have changed completely. Killing an enemy in a modem
war is a very expensive operation. If you considei* how many
Germans were killed in the late war, and how much the victors
are paying in income tax, you can, b}^ a sum in long division,
discover the cost of a dead German, and you will find it con-
siderable. In the East, it is true, the enemies of tlie Germans
have secured the ancient advantages of turning out the defeated
])opulation and occupying th(‘ir lands. The W estern victors,
however, have secured no such advantages. It is obvious that
modern war is not good business from a financial point of view.
Although we wx>n both the world wars, we should now be
miK'h richer if they had not o(*curred. If men were actuated by
self-interest, which they an* not — except in the case of a few
saints— the whole human race would co-')pcratc. There would
be no more w'ars, no mo. • aimies, no more navies, no more
atom bombs. There w^ould not be armies of propagandists
employed in poisoning the minds of Nation A against Nation B,
and reciprocally of Nation B against Nation A. There would
not be armies of officials at frontiers to prevent tlic entry of
foreign books and foreign ideas, however excellent in them-
selves. There would not be customs barriers to ensure the
existence of many small enterprises where one big enterprise
would be more economic. All this Wv uld liappen very quickly if
men desired their own happiness as ardently as they desire the
misery of their neighbours. But, you will tell me, what is the
use of these Utopian dreams.? Moralists will see to it that we

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

do not become wholly selfish, and until we do the millennium
will be impossible.

I do not wish to seem to end upon a note of cynicism. I do
not deny that there are better things than selfishness, and that
some people achieve these things. I maintain, however, on the
one hand, that there are few occasions upon which large bodies
of men, such as politics is concerned with, can rise above selfish-
ness, while, on the other hand, there are a very great many
circumstances in which populations will fall below selfishness,
if selfishness is interpreted as enlightened self-interest.

And among those occasions on which people fall below self-
interest are most of the occasions on w^hich they are convinced
that they are acting from idealistic motives. Much tliat passes
as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
When you see large masses of men swayed by what appear to
be noble motives, it is as well to look below the surface and
ask yourseli’ what it is that makes these motives eftective. It is
partly because it is so easy to be taken in by a fa<;ade^)f nobility
that a pvsychological inquiry, such as I have been attempting, is
worth making. 1 would say, in conclusion, that if what I have
said is right, the main thing needed to make the world happy is
intelligence. And this, after all, is an optimistic conclusion,
because intelligence is a thing that can be fostered by known
methods of education.

174

CHAPTER m

Forethought and Skill

MAN differs from the other liigher mammals in various ways,
iaall of wliich, man being the judge, it is thought that men are
superior to other animals. The differences arc not much con-
ccmed with the congenital apparatus of impulse and passion.
A new'-born baby differs little from a new-born puppy or kitten
except in being more helpless. Tlie cycle of hunger, lamenta-
tion, rage and repletion is much the same in a human infant as
in infants of other mammalian species. It is not in the raw
uiat(Tial of passion and impulse that liuman beings are peculiar
in the animal kingdom, but in certain broad capacities which
may be grouped under two heads as those belonging to intel-
ligence and tlu^se belonging to imagination. Both intelligence
and imagination afford new outlets foi tlie passions without
changing them fundamentally. It is melancholy, and at first
sight perplexing, that, although both intelligence and imagi-
nation enable men to find new means of satisfying their desires
and indulging their iinpui.es, neither has so far increased the
happiness c>f liumaji ludng.s, or even enabled it to maintain tlie
level w^hicli it liad reached wlien opes first became men. Con-
sider for a moment tlic eomparison of two typical individuals:
one, a monkey in a ti'opical forest, swinging from branch to
branch in skilful gymnastics, gathering bananas and coconuts
and indulging iinrcstraiiiedl}'^ every impulse of pleasure or fury
tliat the moment may bring; the other, an employee in a city
firm, living in a dismal suburb, waU^ d by an alarm ('lock long
before he has any impulse to leave his bed, breakfasting hastily,
harassed throughout tlie day by fear of the di.spleasure of
superiors, and returning wearily in the evening to familiar

175

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

monotony. Can you honestly maintain that the man is happier
than the monkey? And yet the man in question is much happier
than the majority of the human race. He is not subjected to
alien domination, he is not a slave, a prisoner, a member of a
forced-labour camp, or a peasant in time of famine. In view of
all these considerations, it cannot be said tliat man has used his
intelligence and imagination as wisely as he is apt to think.
There is a human happiness, as oppo jcd to that of other animals,
of wliich human beings are capable and whicli some human
beings acliievc. It would be completely useless to attempt to
revert to purely animal happiness, for animal happiness is
punctuated by disaster in the way of starvation or sudden
death, and to human beings, with their powder of tliought, a life
exposed to such hazards cannot be a happy one. But the happi-
ness whicli is distinctive of man, though now rare, could be
nearly universal. Tlie things that make human life miserable
are preventable, and the ways of preventing them are knowm.
Why, then, are these ways not adopted? The ansi^(T to this
question is tragic' and complicated. The following chapters will
be concerned to set it fortli.

Let us begin with son:e psychological considerations that are
necessary in the explanation of this enormous human folly.
There is, to begin with, a broad distinction between passion
and intelligence: passion determines what ends men will seek,
and intelligeiK'e helps them to find means to those ends. But
within the sphere of passion, there is a distinction w'liich is too
often overlooked: I mean the distinction between impulse and
desire. An act is impulsive when it is done without conscious
purpose. There are, to begin with, all the reflexes; and,
beyond these, there are the things that people do when, as it is
said, they are overwhelmed by ungovernable passion. A man in
a fury will do things which, if he thought for a moment, he
would know to be unwise. A man parched with thirst may
drink to the point of causing himself serious physical injury. A
man who has expectations from a rich uncle whom he hates

176

FORETHOUGHT AND SKILL

may, on occasion, be unable to conceal his hatred. In all such
cases there are acts to which we are impelled almost as irre-
sistibly as we are impelled to sneezing or coughing — almost,
though not quite. Conscious desire, on the other hand, thinks
first of a state of affairs which is hoped for, and then looks for
means of bringing about this state of affairs. Conscious desire,
in so far as it prevails, leads to control of impulse, since impulse
often prompts actions which, from the point of view of con-
scious desire, are unwise. To this control, however, there are
limits. If an impulse is strong, it is very painful to control it,
and there is reluctance to admit that, if uncontrolled, it will lead
to misfortune. A dipsomaniac and a drug addict are obvious
examples, but there are many examples which, though less
obvious, are much more important. It is pleasant to resent
injuries. It is pleasant to attribute our lack of success to the
machinations of enemies. It is pleasant to indulge the feeling of
power in overcoming obstacles which arises in moments of
passion. The pleasure of indulging impulse and the pain of
restraining it, are both so great that men deceive themselves as
to the consequences of indulgence. A slogan such as “Justice
will triumph”, or “Right will prevail”, is merely the protest of
impulse against calculation, as niaj be seen by the fact that, in
a dispute, both sides equally appeal to such encouraging false-
hoods, and therefore both t.des equally conclude that concilia-
tion would be pusillanimous.

It caraiot be said that tlie control of impulse beyond a point is
desirable. In extreme forms, such as an impulse to murder, it
must be controlled either by the individual or by the law. But
a life in which impulse is controlled beyond a point loses its
savour and becomes joyless and anaemic Impulse must be
allowed a large place in human life, but ought not to lead, as
in fact it <locs, to vast systems of individual and collective
self-deception.

Intelligence has been used, broadly speaking, to control
impulse in the interests of conscious desire. The distinction

177

M

HVMAH SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

may be illustrated by very simple kinds of behaviour. When an
animal is hungry and' food is before it, it eats on impulse, and
there is not tliat gulf between the present and the future which
is characterLstic of consc'ious desire. Tlie animal then does
notliing further in the way of looking for food until appetite
revives. A human being, on the other hand, when he has had
an adequate meal, realizes that he will presently be hungry
again and takes steps to secure future meals. In doing this, he
is acting upon desire rather than iqion impul^. I do not pre-
tend that desire as opposed to impulse is absent in the life of
animals; still less, that impulse as opposed to desire is absent
in the life of human beings. W’^hat I am saying is that, owing
to intelligence, desire as opjiosetl to impulse controls a much
larger part of the actions of men than of those of animals.

Intelligence, as exemplified in human history, has two main
forms’ forethought and skill. I shall begin with forethought.

Forethought is an offshoot of memory. Man is less domi-
nated by the immediate sensible environment than ^limals arc.
Hunger, as we observed a moment ago, is remembered by
human beings when it is not felt, and is therefoie guarded
against by storing food. It is true that animals also store food
in certain cases — bees store honey and s(|uirrels store nuts ~
but I think it is reasonable to suppose that they do this from a
direct impulse to the actions involved and not from a realiza-
tion of tlieir agreeable consequent es later on. Everybody
would admit a similar view in regard to sex. 1 have never met
anybody wlio supposed that animals indulged in sex from a
desire for oflTspring. No doubt tlie squirrel finds the same sort
of dircft plca.surc in burying nuts as it does in sex. Human
beings, however, are different from sf|uirrels and bees in this
respect. They tlo things in which they find no immediate
pleasure whatsoever, because they believe that these things are
means to future satisfactions. Sometimes the future satisfaction
is quite distant. Wlien Joseph warned Pharaoh that the seven
fat years were going to be succeeded by seven lean years, he

178

FORETHGUOMT^, AND SKILL

induced the King to store the surplus grain of the fat years
seven years in advance of the time wh^ it would be needed.
When railways began to be built into the Middle- West with a
view to supplying grain to Europe, the lapse of time between
the turning of the first sod and the consumption of the first loaf
produced from Middle-Western ctoj)s was at least as long.

Forethought is the most important of all the causes tliat
make human life different from that of animals. It has become
gradually more dominant with the lapse of time. The first
really importajrt stage was the adoption of agriculture, which
was motivated by the fact that in summer j>eople foresaw the
hunger they w'ould feel in winter. It has gone on increasing its
hold through government, law, armies, tools and modern
machines. Consider the importance of capital in modern
national and intemational economy. “Capital” is one of those
words which, because they are familiar, are used without
adequate lealization of what tliey mean. Capital is primarily a
means tow aids the ])rodiiction of consumable commodities.
One may lake a railway as typical. You cannot eat a railway.
It is not a good place on which to lie dc'wn and sleep. In facA it
serves no direct pur])ose whatever. Its purpose is merely to '
make it easier to supjily peojile with various things other than
railways that gi\e them satisfaction. This, at least, is its ulti-
mate human purpose. Owii ' to the cc'inplexities of our e< onomic
system it has c^uite other pioximale purposes, namely, to supply
profit to tliose w'ho build it. But, n the long run, it will not
c'ontinue to serve these proximate j>urposes unless it is a means
to the satisfaction of consumers, for, if it is not, it will not
carry enough goods and passengers to yield a profit. Capital
has of course other forms less concrete than a railway or a
factory. Above* all, capital takes the form of credit. But all its
forms have this in common, that i!a 3* involve the postpone-
ment of present consumption for the sake of more abundant
consumption at a later time. They arc thus essentially dependent
upon forethought tor their very existence.

17.9

HUMAN SOCIETY IN, ETHICS AND POLITICS

Interest on capital is due to the existence of a certain amount
of forethought — but hot too much. Suppose I have ^100
which I invest at 5 per cent: that means that I am at least as
pleased by the prospect of £l05 a year hence as by the spend-
ing of £100 now. If I had infinite forethought, any rate of
interest, however low, would suffice to induce me lo invest my
capital rather than spend it all at once. One may perhaps infer
that, other things being equal, the more forethought people
have, the lower will be the rate of interest, but it would take
me too far from my theme to pursue such speculations further.

Let us consider for a moment the extent to which forethought
dominates the life of an ordinary civilized individual. As a child,
he himself lias less forethought than an adult, but adults impose
tlieir own forethought by compelling him to spend a great part
of his time in school where he has to do things towards which
he has not the faintest impulse. The time comes when he
realizes that education is necessary, if he is to earn a living. He
then acquiesces in "the educational process, not froip impulse,
but from forethought. As soon as he is old enough, he .spends
his working hours in activities which he would never have
chosen but for the income that they will bring. If he marries
and is a reputable citizen, he forgoes many pleasures for the
sake of his children, which again is due to forethought as to
their future. Unless he is somewhat exceptional, he guards his
tongue, expressing those opinions which will further his
advancement, and concealing any which might be thought
unorthodox. If he has die ordinary share of ambition, he hopes
for success in his work, and is dominated by forethought as to
how success is to be achieved. In the end, prudence itself
becomes an impulse, and the rest of his instinctive life is
atrophied. This is not a fancy picture. It is the actual biography
of nine average citizens out of ten in every civilized country.

Public affairs are equally dominated by forethought. There
are the law and the police, there is public education, there is the
whole vast apparatus of government, there are armies and

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FORETHOUGHT AND SKILL

navies and air forces, and, at the apex of the whole structure,
there are a few very clever men who are considering the most
efficient way of exterminating rival populations. There is, it is
true, a very very tiny fraction of public expenditure which has
no purpose except to give pleasure. There are public parks,
which sometimes contain swings and see-saws for the delecta-
tion of children. At the seaside there are piers and esplanades.
But even parks and piers do not wholly escape from the domina-
tion of bureaucratic killjoys: they always have prominent notice s
telling you all the things you must not do, but they hardly
e^ f“r have notices telling you of the pleasant things you may do.

I have spoken of various ways in which forethought is
inimical to happiness, but it would be entirely mi.sleading to
end the discussion of forethought on this note. Although it
must be admitted that in many directions tliere is an excess of
lorethought, there are other directions, perhaps even more
important, in which there is too little. The most important of
these arc the prevention of war, the increase of food supply,
and the limitation of population. These are problems which the
future will have to solve, and which it will not soH*e without
new kinds of forethought. But on these matters I will say no
more at present.

Intelligence, wo said, takes two main forms: forethought and
skill. I come now to the part p,ayed by skill in human development.

Skill is not w'holly confined to human beings. Many animals
possess various kinds of it. But the part which it plays among
men is so very much greater than tne part which it plays even
among the most developed of other animals as to make the
difference of degree amount almo.st to a difference in kind.

Let us, to begin with, be clear as to what we mean by
‘‘skill”. I mean by ‘‘skill” the practice of activities on account
of some effect which it has been found that these activities will
have. It should, I think, be added that the activities must be
.such as would not be engaged in but for knowledge of their
desired effects. The accumulation and transmission of acquired

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skills would have been impossible without language exc^^pt in
very simple cases. The origin of language is wrapped in total
obscurity. No one knows when either speech or picture-
writing began, but it is clear that without them it would be
very much more difficult for a man who has made a discovery
to cause it to be known to others. Another thing of which the
origin is completely prehistoric is fire. Agriculture, which
introduced the first really important change in social life, seems
to have begun very shortly before the dawn of history, prob-
ably through a combination of accident with forctliought. It
has been suggested — I do not know with what truth — that it
was discovered through the practice of scattering grain on
tombs for the nourishment of the deceased, and that, to the
surprise of pious relatives, the grain grew up and produced
fresh grain. It was a not very difficult exercise of forethought
to pass from tliis observation to the rleli berate planting of grain
with a view' to a future harvest. However this may be, agricul-
ture was already well established in the river valleys^ of the
Nile, the Indus and Mesopotamia at the earliest moment of
which we have historical, as opposed to archaeological, evidence.

Probably the domestication of sheep and cattle preceded the
beginning of agriculture. It involved very much less change in
men's habits than was involved in agriculture, since it left
them still nomadic. The transition from a nomadic life depend-
ing upon flocks and herds to the settled life cliaractcristic of
agriculturists has proceeded very slowly, and has been taking
place even in our own day in such regions as Outer Mongolia.
Domestic animals were useful not only, like sheep and cattle,
for food and clotliing, but also as a source of powx^r in traction
and as a means of increasing speed and diminishing fatigue in
locomotion. I'he horse, which was a latecomer among domestic
animals, had at first a mainly military use, and gave to the
tribes which employed it a decisive superiority in battle over
those who depended upon the ass.

ITie manufacture of weapons, which goes far back into

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FORETHOUGHT AND SKILL

prehistoric times, had originally two purposes of about equal'
importance: namely, war and huntmg. It' is not known at what
stage our ancestors became meat-eaters, but it is obvious that
even the most primitive weajjons made it easier to kill animals
for meat than it had been. As time went on, the importance of
weapons in war came to outv\ eigh their importance in hunting,
and, from the time of Archimedes to the present day, improve-
ment in weapons of war has been the main incentive to scien-
tific progress.

Progress in technical skill has proceeded at a very uneven
rate at different periods of hi.storv. After the development of
agriculture and the domestit alion of animals, nothing of cc^ual
importance occurred until ({uite recent times. Peasants in the
Nile Valle), five thousand years ago, were not so very different
in the matter of skill from tlieir successors of a Jiundrcd years
ago. But during the past two centuries a comjilete transforma-
tion has taken place, first in a few 'W'estem countries and
gradually throughout the world. The whole of this transforma-
tion is due to new .skills.

It is an odd thing how bits of knowledge can lie dormant for
centuries and suddenly become vital factors in civilization. The
magnetic properties of certain rocks in Magnesia were observed
by the Ancients, but never led them to the mariner's compass.^
They observed also some of the electrical properties of amber,
but it was only in our own day that electricity began to play a
part in industrial technique. Many fundamental discoveries
have been the accidental reward of rc-,tless curiosity. One of
the best examples of this is the first discovery of radio-activity
by Becquercl. He ])ut some lumps of pitchblende into a dark
cupboard in which there happened to be some photograpliic
plates. Wlien he took the plates out later on, he found that die
pitchblende had jihotographcd itself, it . i>ite of being in com-
plete darkness.

‘ The Chinese are .sjid to have invented a “soutli-poiiiting chariot” but the
facts are uncertaut.

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

Industrial skill has very much increased the tendency, which
began with agriculture, to lengthen the process from a want to
its satisfaction. An animal cannot allow more than a few hours
to elapse in the activity of seeking food, whereas an agricul-
turist, even of the most primitive sort, allows several months
to elapse between the first activity in food production and the
final eating of the food. In the modem world, the process is
enormously longer and more complex. The fanner uses
machinery which has to be transported by road or rail from jan
urban centre. The machinery itself is made from raw materials
which equally have to be transported. The farmer, as a rule,
does not consume his own crop. It goes to a mill and thence,
very likely, to some distant coimtry. In this long intricate
combination of forethought and skill, there is, throughout, a
dependence upon an elaborate social and economic organiza-
tion, which may break down, with disastrous consequences, in
time of war. Tlie journey from primitive hunger and food-
gathering to modem agriculture and food-distribution is so
long, and tlie result is so complex, that it is scarcely possible
to see and remember the natural impulses out of which the
whole system has grown by the application of intelligence.

Let us now return to a question which was touched on earlier
in this chapter: has the increase of intelligence, and especially
of skill, increased or diminished the average happiness of
mankind^ It might have been expected that such a question
could not reasonably be asked, for, since all skill consists in the
discovery of easier ways to satisfy our desires, one might have
supposed that of course increase of skill would mean lessening
of labour and smoother roads to the fulfilment of our needs.
But this, in fact, has not been the course of human history.
New skills have not at first been equally the property of all
men. They have almost always been monopolized by a minority,
and that minority have used them to increase their control over
other men. The consequence has been that, although the
minority profited, the majority became more subject to the

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power of the few. Agriculture, by tyin^ the cultivator to his
plot of land, made it easy to enslave him, and produced,
wherever it prevailed, a system of slavery or serfdom, which
made the life of tlic cultivator of the soil far less free and far
less happy than that of the nomad. Forethought produced
governments and armies which established property rights
favourable to the holders of power, and enabled them to live
in luxury while the bulk of the population worked harder for
legs reward than in a more primitive state of affairs. A very
similar process was repeated with the introduction of indus-
trialism everywhere except in the United States. The begin-
nings of industrialism in Britain, France, Germany and, later,
in Russia, China and Japan were harsh and cruel m die highest
degree. Paradoxically, every “labour-saving” device increased
the hours of labour, and diminished the wages paid for that
labour. These unfortunate results were due everywhere to the
uneven distribution of power. They are to be seen at their
worst now in Communist countries, where power is more
completely concentrated in the hands of a small minority than
it is anywhere else. There is only one cure for these evils, and
that is the more equal distribution of power throughout the
whole community.

There is another evil, even more difficult to cope with,
which has resulted from tlie development of new skills. Every
species of animal which survives must have a certain balance
between its impulses and the opportunities offered by the
environment. When, for any reason, the environment offers
new opportunities in certain directions, the balance may be
upset. Bears love honey, and in a state of nature they cannot
easily get it. As a rule, therefore, they get only as much honey
as is good for them. But, if they suddenly learnt the art of
keeping bees and became able to get as much honey as they
wanted, they would presumably all become very ill and perhaps
the whole species would die out. Its only hope would lie in the
development of an ascetic morality teaching that the pleasure

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HUMAN SOCrETVlN ETHICS AND POLITJCS

in honey is sinful. This is exactly what has happened with
human beings in the case of alcohol. Savage tribes, whidb are
unaccustomed to it, are quickly ruined if traders are allowed to
supply them freely witli fire-water. Fortunately, among civilized
people the increase in the alcoholic content of drinks has been
gradual, so that at every stage a large proportion of the popula-
tion have been able to survive the perils of dipsomania.

More serious than tliis instance is the power impulse. Most
energetic men possess this impulse in a high degree. In a loose
community of primitive food-gatherers, it has not much scope
and is probably useful to the tribe when the tribe is at war with
some other tribe and needs a leader. But, with every increase
in organization, the scope for the power impulse bicreases, so
that power-loving individuals become like the bears who sud-
denly have access to too much honey, or the savages who are
suddenly supplied with whisky. That is why elaborate safe-
guards in the form of Rights of Man and democratic govern-
ment become important in highly organized communities.

The most important form that the power impulse takes at
the present day is rivalry. When men could only fight with
sharp Hints or with spears, and when the human population of
the globe was small, fighting between tribes could lead to
complete victory by the stronger tribe and perhaps to some-
thing deserving to be called suivival of the fittest. There was
therefore no Darwinian reason for diminution of the impulse to
rivalry. But with every new skill in the art of war this has
become less true, and at the present moment warlike .skill is
the chief danger facing the continuation of our species.

So much for the debit account in the matter of intelligence.
There are, however, very important items on the credit side.
The main use that has been made of intelligence so far is to
increase the numbers of the human population of the globe. I
do not know how far this can be considered a merit. If all were
happy, it clearly would be. But if most are miserable there does
not seem much advantage in increasing the number of sufferers.

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FORETHOUGHT aYID SKILL

This question is especially important as regards food. Hitherto,
skill has enabled increase of food production to keep pace with
increase of population, but there is every reason to fear that
this is ceasing to be the case. A new problem has been raised
by what is undoubtedly one of the greatest benefits conferred
by skill: namely, the diminution of illness and the increase in
the average length of life. Intelligence can make this an unmiti-
gated boon, but only if it applies itself to the problem of
preventing over-population.

Whether, on tlie balance, intelligence will prove to have
been a boon or a curse to mankind, we cann«)t yet know. But
one tiling is clear: if it proves a curse, it will be only because it
has been not sufficiently intelligent. Man cannot return to the
thoughtless happines.s ol animals. The happiness of which he is
capable must be won by the help of intelligence, and, if he fails
to achieve it, it will be, not through excess, but through defect
in his most distinctively human quality.

187

CHAPTER IV

Myth and Magic

THE behaviour of human beings differs from that of animals
not only owing to forethought and skill, but also, and almost
as much, owing to imagination. No doubt the higher animals
must have imagination in some degree. One can observe dogs
dreaming, apparently, like Norse heroes, of the pleasures of
the chase. But the extent of animal imagination must remain
conjectural, and it is pretty clear that the actions of animals are
not, like those of human beings, largely governed by vast
edifices of belief that stem from imagination.

When we examine the grounds upon which human beings
believe this or that, \\e find that they are of two sorts. They
may believe something on the basis of evidence such as would
be considered relevant in a scientific investigation or a law
court, or they may believe solely because what they are believ-
ing feels right. As Tennyson says:

If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,

I lieard a voice "believe no more"

And heard an ever-breaking shore
That tumbled in the Godless deep;

A warmth within the breast would melt
The freezing reason's colder part,

And like a man in wrath the heart
Stood up and answer'd "I have felt."

In Tennyson's day what the heart felt was the creed of a liberal
Churchman. In earlier epochs it had felt that witches ought to be
burnt or children sacrificed or parents eaten. The evidence for
Tennyson's beliefs was no better and no worse than the evidence
for these earlier beliefs. On the whole, as men become more
civilized, the sphere of evidence in the formation of beliefs

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MYTH AND MAGIC

becomes larger, and the sphere of imagination smaller. But even
in the most civilized communities the function of imagination in
determining beliefs and supporting institutions is very great.

Although the beliefs suggested by imagination, if true, are
true only as a matter of luck, they are nevertheless essential to
human survival. The things that can be known in a scientific
sense are not easily come by, and no one could long survive
without the help of scientifically unwarrantable credulity.
Cnedulity can of course lead to disaster: rats will eat food that
contains rat-poison. But if, before eating, they were to subject
their food to scientific analysis, they would die of hunger
meanwhile, and so they are well advised to take the risk. But
it is not only in such elementary ways that unfounded beliefs
may be useful. They are useful also as supplying hypotheses
which may later turn out to be scientifically justified. It is not
only in the arts and in the refining of human relations that
imagination is valuable. In the purest and driest parts of
science it is as necessary as in lyric poetry. I am saying this by
way of preliminary, since a great part of what I shall have to
say will be concerned with the misfortune and anguish that
unfounded imaginative beliefs have brought upon mankind
from the dawn of history to the present day.

Imagination in itself does not involve belief. Poets do not
suppose that their fictions have reality.

And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of tilings unknown, tin poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

But as Shakespeare immediately goes on to point out, imagination
which is sufficiently vivid induces belief in the thing imagined:

Such tricks hath .strong imaginati* a.

That, if it vi ould but apprehend some joy.

It comprehends some bringer of that joy;

Or in the night, imagining some fear.

How easy is a bush supposed a bearl

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

One may perhaps conjecture that the hold which imagination
has had on men’s beliefs began through dreams. Dreams are
sometimes so vivid and so apparently weighted with portent
that even scientifically trained minds may find it difficult to
shake them off and to reject their apparent significance in
regard to things to come. In antiquit}' hardly anybody doubted
their importance as omens, and many among ourselves, while
not consciously accepting this ancient superstition, may find
that wc are oppressed throughout a whole day by the sombre
weight of some unusually horrible nightmare. Freud has popu-
larized the theory that dreams give expression to our wishes.
No doubt this is true of a percentage of dreams, but I think
dreamt are ju.st as apt to give expression to our fears. Freud
avoids this conclusion by reflexions which seem to me luiduly
cynical. He thinks that if you dream that your dearest friend is
dead, that shows that you really hate him and would like him
to be dead. This seems to me nonsense, and I tliink it is even
more obviously absurd to sujipose that wishes inspire dreams
in which oneself is subjected to torture. This matter is not
unimportant, for it is out of the realm of dreams, and the
cognate realm of daydreams, that men have fashioned the vast
systems of manic and ritual and in}th and religion which have
influenced human life at least as profoundly as the skills and
observations out of which stientific knowledge has grown.
Almost without exception, these systems, from voodoo to
Calvinist tlieology, have been inspired more by fear than by any
other one motive, and altJiough wish-fulfilment has pla}ed its
part in showing how to avoid what is feared, the fear itself has
been to a very great degree the product of imagination.

I do not pretend that this is always the case with imagina-
tive beliefs. Some of them have no great emotional content, but
feel to the believer the sort of thing that one might expect. 1
had a parlourmaid who believed that people bom in March are
specially liable to corns. Aristotle believed that the bite of the
shrew-mouse is dangerous to horses, especially if the mouse is

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MYTH AND MAGIC

pregnant. Most uneducated people believe that the weatlier is
affected by the phases of the moon. I*3rthagoras thought it
dangerous to leave the impress of tlie body on the bed when
getting up. A considerable percentage of English people believe
that the English are the Lost I’en Tribes. Instances of such
beliefs could be multiplied indefinitely, but where they have no
roots in some deep emotion, they are as a rule not socially
important.

^Socially important irrational beliefs almost all spring from
one thing in human nature, which is the tendency to tliink that
what is of emotional iniportani'e to the individual or the race
must be of causal importance in the outer world. According to
temperament and circumstances, some men will feel that tlie
world cannot be so cruel as to thwart their ardent hopes, while
others, in whom fear is the prc\ ailing passion, will expect the
horrors that they dread, and imenl myths to rationalize their
apprehension. Roth errors alike spring from self^mportance. It
is difficult to believe that the external world is indifferent to
our hopes and feai's. We can iin;igine it to be kindly, or we can
imagine it to he hostile, but most people at most times have
found it almost imjKJssible to imagine that the outer world
cares nothing as to whether our wishes are fulfilled or
thwarted.

This is connected with an<'‘her souR’e of irrational belief:
namely, tlie tendency to think that causes in nature must be
something like our own desires and feelings. Eruptions and
earthquakes seem like manifestations of anger, and so we
imagine an angry spirit which is causing them. A kindly spirit,
on the other hand, sends the rain that makes crops grow. Life-
less matter is difficult to imagine, and becomes less puzzling if
we people the forest with tree-spirits and the springs with
naiads. Until the time of Galileo, it wc- thought that matter
would not keep on moving if left to itself. Aristotle thought
that the planets required forty-nine or perhaps fifty-five gods
to keep on pushing them in their orbits. The conception of a

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

purely physical, self-acting causation is very modeni, and has
only prevailed, in so far as it has prevailed, by resisting the
solicitations of our imaginative system of beliefs.

Beliefs which have no basis in observation or reason are an
index to the dominant passions of tliose who invent them.
From this point of view, human history is very dark and
dreadful. The kinds of action prompted by superstition have
usually been cruel, and most of the myths that men have
invented have added imaginary sufferings to those that were
real. The ritual dances of savages are terrifying, and are apt to
be tlie prelude to some unnecessary act of cruelty such as
human sacrifice. In any account of early man, or of savages in
our own day, 3'ou will find innumerable horrors inflicted
because they are thought to serve a useful purpose, but you
will find hardly any kindly customs resulting from irrational
belief. Cruelty based on superstition was less prevalent in the
Graeco-Roman world than it had been at earlier times, in spite
of the fact that purely frivolous cruelty, such as that of Roman
games, was very common. But throughout the Dark Ages and
the Middle Ages, superstitious cruelty was again widespread,
especiallj' in the persecution of heretics and witches.

The myths embodied in most religions gave expression to
the fear of death. Most pre-Christian religions taught that the
dead, if they survive at all, survive unhappil}'. Christianity,
until (juite recently, taught that the great majority of mankind
would suffer eternal torment. This is no longer the teaching of
the Church, and witchcraft and heresy are not punished as they
were. Perhaps one may draw from these changes the con-
clusion that fear and cruelty have not as great a hold upon
modem men as they had in earlier centuries. At any rate, I
think one may say this of Western countries and of India and
Ceylon. In Communist countries new forms of theological
cruelty have arisen, and I doubt whether optimism is justified
where they are concerned.

The history of man has shown at most times and in most

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MYTH AND MAGIC

places an irrational fear of happiness, wjiich has been a cause
of an immeasurable load of unnecessary misery. It would, I
think, be shallow to regard this aversion from happiness as
applying only to the happiness of others. There is deep in most
human nature a feeling that one's own happiness is dangerous.
Ascetic impulses have very deep roots. The Greeks dreaded
Nemesis and felt that hubris would be punished. Most of us
are afraid to boast of goo<l health or good fortune from a
siqicrstitious feeling that to do so will bring bad luck. This
feeling survives in us as a feeling, even though we may be
firmly persuaded that it lias no justification. But in civilized
modern men this is no more than a pale ghost of the passion
for self-aba semc'iit that has .seizcHl upon various communities at
earlier times. In the Chiistiau world and also in India, a.sceti-
cisin has been the mark of a saint, and the highest degree of
holiness has been reserved to celibates. The things that men
have thought pleasing to the gods throw a strange light upon
their own emotions. Why should Moloch have rejoiced in the
sacrifice of children.^ I think a part of the explanation must be
that happiness was thought wicked, and a savage god seemed
to rationalize this feeling, v^nother part of the explanation of
this and other religious sacrifices is that people supposed the
god must value what they considered precious, and that in
giving up llieir most precious possessions to him they would
be giving him conclusive proof of their devotion. The same
sentiment, though in a less cruel form, ! ecame part of Christian
piety, as exemplified, for instance, in the hymn:

If Thou shoulust call me to resign

What most I prize, it ne’er was mine.

I tally yield Thee what is Thine.

'I'hy will be done.

Why did vSt. Augustine decide that unbaptized infaiiLs go to
Hell.'' I do not think it was from hatred of infants. I think the
psycluilogical lOOt was hatred of himself. Hatred of oneself is a

N lys

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

commoner emotion th^ is sometimes thought, and il is apt to
find its outlet in cruelty towards others. The men who sacri-
ficed their children to Moloch felt that they themselves deserved
to suffer at his hands, but they hoped that their children’s
sufferings would satisfy him.

The sense of sin or guilt is part of a whole system of feelings
which have to do with the correlative, though opposite, desires
to dominate and to be dominated. Most people have both,
though in some the one is stronger, and in others, the other.
The wish to be dominated is quite as profound and spontaneous
as the wish to dominate. It is only the existence of both that
has made possible the persistence through many centuries of
systems of social inetjuality. Kings, priests and aristoiTacies are
rendered possible by the fact that, while some find jdeasure in
commanding, otliers find apparently equal pleasure in obeying.
And even those who command most absolutely find satisfaction
in the belief that there are heavenly Beings, or that there is a
heavenly Being, even more powerful than themselves and
deserving from them the same kind of submissivencss as they
obta'm from their subjects. In all social institutions that have
anj strength there is this hierarchical order of leaders and
followers, the leaders at one step of the hierarchy being the
followers at ani^tlier. This is true, more particularly, in the
sphere of religious belief. The men who invent religions, or
cause them to be widely accepted, are exceptional men in whom
religion plays a much larger part than it docs in the lives of
ordinary men and women even in the most religious com-
munities. What it is that is exceptional in a religious leader
varies from man to man, and from one religion to another. There
is a certain type in which both the impulses, towards command
and towards submission, are exceptionally strong. I think
Loyola might be taken as an almost perfect instance of this
type, h'or a man with this mentality the concept of sin, with its
appropriate surroundings of myth, is exactly suitable. He him-
self, in relation to God or the gods, is a miserable sinner. He

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MYTH AND MAGIC

can abase himself in the solitude of private prayer without loss
of face in regard to oilier men. He can seek forgiveness by
forgoing pleasures, and by the voluntary endurance of pains
which, he believes, are less llian the pains of Hell and may be
accepted in lieu of them. In this way, when his imagination has
created heavenly powers in relation to which he can confess
himself to be but a worm, his impulses to submission are fully
satisfied without becoming at any pomt an obstacle to his
impulses of dominion. On the contrary, since all men are
sinners, and since he is engaged in a heroic struggle with his
own sinfulness, he has every right to use the strength of char-
acter obtained by self-discipline in the equally delectable task
of disciplining others. From his rivvn asceticism he passes easily
to the task of depriving others of the pleasures which he has
forgone, and, although to us he ma}r seem to be engaged in the
pursuit of power, he appears before the bar of his conscience as
engaged in the enforcement of virtue. Most stern moralists are
in the habit of thinking of pleasure as only of the senses, and,
when they esihew the pleasures of sense, they do not notice
that th(‘ pleasures of power, which to men of their temperament
are far more attractive, have not been brought within the ban
of their ascetic self-denial. It is the prevalence of this type of
psychology in forceful men which has made the notion of sin so
popular, since it combines so ^ Tftvtly humility towards heaven
with self-assertion here on ecirth. The conc('pt of sin has not
the hold upon men’s imaginvitions tl‘..t it had in the Middle
Ages, but it still dominaU's the thoughts of many clergymen,
magistrates and school-masters. When the great Dr. Arnold
walked on the shores of the Lake of Como, it w'as not the
beauty of the scene that occupied his thought«i. He meditated,
so he tells us, on moral evil. 1 rather fear that it was the moral
evil of s('hool-bo}s rather than schooi uiasters that ])roduced
his melancholy reflexions. However that may be, he was led to
the unshakable belief that it is good for boys to be flogged. One
of the great I'ewards that a belief in sin has always offered to

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

the virtuous is the opportunity which it affords of inflicting
pain without compunction.

Human imagination, by the invention of myths, has created a
cosmos consonant to our preconceptions, a cosmos in which
causation is passionate and is an expression of love or hate, in
which there are heavenly powers to be placated by the same
means that are found efficacious with earthly monarchs, in
which the whole gamut of human emotions is projected upon
the outer world in all its variegated confusion. We love, there-
fore the gods may be kind ; we hate, therefore the gods may be
cruel ; we wish to obey unquestionable authority, and are there-
fore pious; we wish to exert unquestionable authority, and
therefore believe ourselves mouthpieces of God; we feel fear,
and w'e gnwel; we feel hope, and w^e raise our eyes to heaven.
Each emotion in turn finds its embodiment in myth. Fear pro-
duces the terror of ghosts; hope produces the anticij)ation of
heaven. If there are oartliquakes, it is because we have sinned.
If the crops prosper, it is because we have been piems. The
whole process of causation in the outer world is along the lines
of our own feelings. Not that it is all as we could wish, but
that, when it is not, tliis is due to the anger of powerful beings.
The world is like a large quarrelsome family, uncomfortable at
times, but always cosy and homelike.

The world that science, during the last four centuries, lias
been gradually presenting for our acceptance, is very different
and has very different credentials. The man of science asks us
to believe it, not because it is what we expect, but because it
is what we find; not because poetic vision sugge^sts it, but
because the slow accumulation of facts makes it probable. 'Fhe
further physics has penetrated into the secrets of tlie material
world, the more alien that world has been found to be from
anything that we can imagine. Although it is only through the
senses that we know the physical world, in so far as we do
know it, we are nevertheless being driven to the conclusion
that the physical world is in all likelihood so different from the

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MYTH AND MAGIC

world of our sense-perceptions that the most we can know of it
is its abstract logical structure. Imagination has not been
dethroned, but has become a constitutional monarch. It can no
longer invent freely, but only within the limits allowed by
scientific method. Within these limits, it is true, it finds new
scope. Dante could traverse the universe of his time in twent}'-
four hours, but the universe of the modem astronomer, even
though you travel with the speed of light, takes many millions
of years to traverse, and beyond its outermost bounds, count-
less nebulae, each about as vast as the Milky Way, are per-
petually toppling over the edge into eternal invisibility. This
new world of astronomy is vast, but cold. Nowhere is there
anything in which the longing for human warmth can find
comfort, and so the upholders of ancient systems complain of
materiali.sm and say that science is forgetting spiritual values.
Those who speak in this way are compelled to overlook what
myth has done for mankind — the long ages of human sacrifice,
of cruel rites, of burnings at the stake, and punishment of those
who sought knowledge. They have to forget the cruelty which
men liase attributed to their gods through making their gods
in their own image. They have to forget Hell and the fear of
Hell and the morbid anguish with which for many centurie*!
that fear oppressed the human spirit. They have to forget that,
in so far as the world of my*’ ha-< been purged of its cruelty,
this has happened in reluctant response to science. Knowledge
has been the liberator by destroying <he mythical excuses for
cruelty.

All this, it may be said, has been true of science in the past,
but has now ceased to be true. Science, it may be said, has now
entered upon a new realm of destruction which threatens man-
kind with far worse things than ever came out of the darkest
superstition. The danger is real and i, > sane man will mini-
mize it, but if it is to be successfully combated it will not be
by a return to ancient myths, or by acquiescence in the precsent-
day myths that are leading mankind towards destruction. If

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

salvation is to be found^ it must be by the help of more science,
not less; it must be by an understanding of man and his im-
pulses, and by the discovery of ways in which his impulses can
be led towards happiness and contentment, rather than, as in
the past and in the present, towards unintended, undcsired
disaster.

198

CHAPTER V

Cohesion and Rivalry

soriAL institutions liave two main roots in human nature:
internally, the correlative impulses to command and to obedi-
ence determine the social hierarchy and give authority to govern-
ment: externally, anotlicr pair, cohesion and rivalry, are the
determining factors. Impulses of co-operation and impulses of
combat are equally primitive. The perpetuation of the specjes
requires co-operation between a male and a female; and
wherever infancy is prolonged, as it is in man, it requires
something in the nature of the family. We inherit the family
from our pre-human ancestry, and it is perhaps the only human
group whicli is completidy in line with natural impulses. But
the limits of the family are not well-defined. Are those who
have the same grandparents to be regarded as belonging to
tlie family.^ If we answer in the affirmative, then liow about
tliose who have the same great-grandparents? Human beings,
unlike even the most highly developed animals, can transmit
traditions. Very primitive tribes will recite long genealogies
and will thus preserve a record of relationships wliich may be
very remote. In this wav the family develops into the tribe.
The tribe, if it is nomadic, moves as a unit. It gradually develops
the authority of a chief, or of a council of elders, who.se decision
is accepted in difficult situations. It is in this way that the first
extension of social cohesion beyond the family has taken place.
Further extensions have been mainly the resuit of rivalry. The
natural man tliinks w'cll of the men*b*rs of his own tribe,
except when he has some special reason to quarrel with them,
but he thinks ill of all other tribes, except precariously when
there is an alliance against a common enemy. It is obvious that

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETpICS AND POLITICS

in combat the larger tribe is likely to be victorious, and if two
tribes form an alliance, they may, while the alliance lasts, be
able to overwlielm enemies against whom neither singly could
succeed. Through this cause, self-interest tends to enlarge the
size of the social group. Gradually self-interest comes to be
re-enforced by other sources of cohesion: a common ancestry is
invented; common beliefs, perhaps at first enforced by govern-
ment, come to be gradually accepted; hatred of common
enemies is a bond, since tliere is a tenaency to love those who
hate what we hate. If such a conglomeration is successful, it
comes in time to celebrate common glories. If it is in danger
from without, it becomes united by having tlio same fears. In
all these various ways, social units larger than the tribe gradu-
ally acquire common sentiments, common hopes and common
fears ; and wlien this process has gone far enough, they can act
with the same unity as is shown by a primitive tribe.

Some such process has gone to the making c;f nations, but
States have usually been made in a different way. Most States
have arisen througli conquest, and the bulk of tlu^ir Subjects
have submitted to authority because they must, not because
they had any sentiment of kinship with their rulers. Perhaps
ancient Egy})t w'as in some degree an exception, for, although
it was formed originally by the union of the l^pj)cr and Lower
Kingdoms, the Nile was such a powerful integiating infliurue
that common sentiments and common beliefs were easily
maintaintd This is borne out b\ the fact that Egypt was the
most permanent State known to history, with the possible
exception of China. Babylonia nevcT achieved anything like the
same stability Sometimes one city was supr(‘me, sometimes
another. Mesopotamia throughout its ancient history was dis-
tracted by w^ars to a very much greater extent than occurred in

The period of great empires acquired by contjuest begins
with the wars of Cyrus and continues througli the (onquests of
Alexander and of Rome, tlirough a period of about a thousand

2CK)

COHESION^ND RIVAERY

years. Throughout this time, it might have seemed that con-
quering annies were irresi.stible and thaf tliere was no limit to
the extent of territory that a great military leader could bring
under his sway. The impact of the Persians in other than
military and governmental matters was not very profound, but
first the (J reeks and then the Romans spread their culture
throughout the lands that they accjuired, and were accepted
with full loyalty by all except tiie Jews. Tlie Roman Empire in
the time of the Antonines had almost the character that in our
day we attribute to a nation. The division of East and West,
which soon afterwards became a disruptive force, had not yet
dcveh>ped to a dangerous point, chiefly because of the Roman
admiration for ihe Greeks, which caused even a Roman Em-
peror to prefer the Greek language in his books. Perlia]>s the
Mediterranean world, including Gaul and Britain and Western
German}’, might have remained one State if there bad been
more wisdom and more initiative in those who adininistoed its
institutivHis. It was destro3’ed, not from within, in s])itc of its
internal weaknesses, but by enemy action from without; and it
sur\ived as a sentiment in mei\’s feelings long after it had
ceased to exist in the West as an actual government. It is a
not(‘vvorthy example of what can be done to .secure social
cohesion by means which begin with nothing but military
fore e.

After the fall of Rome, the West was for a long time given
ov’er to the anarchic rule of rivalry, which became as dominant
as c'ohe.sion had been in earlier c'enturies. England, France,
S|)am, and Italy, were split into a number of petty kingdoms. It
was only gradually and with many set-backs that cohesion
again began to get the upper hand. I'he Empire of Charlemagne
did not last. Holj Roman Emperors and F>cnch Kings had
little authority over their nominal vaN'^ds. The Holy Romati
Emperors never acquired effective autliority, but the French
Kings were at last more succe.ssful. Spain was unified by the
union of Aragon and Castile under Ferdinand and Isabella, and

‘201

HUMAN SOCIETY IN E-^HICS AND POLITICS

by the expulsion of the Moors. England, meanwhile, had
emerged from the disunion of early Saxon times, and became
united with Scotland by a stroke of dynastic good fortune. The
age of discovery led to the creation of several new empires, all
of them larger than the Roman Empire. But these new empires
had not the stability of Rome. First France, then England, and
then Spain lost most of the territory they had acquired in the
Western hemisphere.

The same kind of disruption occuri^'d in the Mohammedan
world. The Empire of the Caliph broke up into many fragments,
wliich, though nominally re-united under tlie Turks (except for
Morocco and Spain), never again acquired any real unity. It is
difficult in tlie history of the %\orld hitherto to discern aii}^ long-
term movement either towards more cohesion or towards more
rivalry. A mere alternation is all that seems discernible. And
this is still true in the most recent history: Austria-Hungary
has been disrupted, the British Empire has fallen apart, and
even the Indian peninsula, wdiich might have been expected to
preserve its unity, has been divided into two by tft) means
friendly States. It is easy to see that this is not tlie end of tlie
story, but it is the point that the story has reached at the
present moment.

Wlicn liowever wt* pass from politics to economics and
culture, the picture is rather different. Hie economic di\islons
of the world are less than the political divisions. I’ntil the
World Wars, economic divisions had been growing steadily
less, commercial relations were world-wide, and the inter-
change of raw materials, food, and industrial products was less
and less affected by political frontiers. Commerce had always
been a civilizing influence from the time of the Icmian Cities of
Asia Minor in the sixth century b.c., until almost our own
day. The Roman Empire had commercial relations with every
part of Asia, including China. Throughout the time of the
Empire, Italy imported most of its food. When the Empire
broke up, and the Roman roads fell into decay and hordes of

202

COHESION AND RIVALRY

robbers infested the countryside, each little district was com-
pelled to live on its own produce, with Ae result that popula-
tion rapidly declined and culture almost wholly disappeared.
Gradually commerce revived, first tlirough the enterprise of
the Italians, and later through that of the Dutch and English;
and with commerce, as in ancient times, came civilization in art
and science and social life. It may be said with little exaggera-
tion that from an economic point of view the world before 1914
w%s one unified whole.

In the cultural sphere also there appeared to be a movement
towards unification. A common culture has always been almost
as great a cause of social cohesion as a common government.
When men first lived in cities, each city had its own culture.
Upper and Lower Egypt had different gods, and so had Balndon
and Ur. But when cities coalesced into empires, their religions
coale.sced into pantheons, so that the area covered by a ('ommon
culture grew with the grow'th of States. It grew, in tact, faster
than States did. The Greeks had a common culture iit spite of
having no political unity. Buddhism jiroduced a cultural unity
throughout China, Japan, Tibet, Burma and C'cjlon. The
Hellenistic culture, which was, roughly .speaking, a combina-
tion of C/reek and Babylonian edements, spread over the regions
concjuered by Alexander, in spite of the fact <haf these regions
.split into several independent states. What was essentially the
Hellenistic culture continued in that of the Roman P2mpire
until the tune of Constantine. The survical of Christianity in
the West after the fall of Rome is one of the most remarkable
examples of a common culture surt'iving political disruption.
Meanwhile most of the Eastern territory that had been C'hris-
tian was lost to Islam. Throughout the Middle Ages there
were two Mediterranean cultures, Christian and Moham-
medan, not only one, as in Roman I’mes. Indeed one might
almost say that there were three, in view of the gradually
increasing separation between the Eastern and W^cstern
Churches.

20.5

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

West European culture, which had throughout the Dark
Ages and the early Middle Ages been territorially circumscribed
and intellectually more limited than that of Islam, suddenly at
tlie time of the Renaissance acquired a new vigour, a new
prestige, and an immense accession of territory. It owed these
things to certain mental qualities, adventurousness, science,
and better political systems than those of other cultures. The
whole of the Western hemisphere fell under its sway. Mis-
sionaries caused it to be respected in the Far East. In India it
acquired political dominion. The Turks, who had overrun
various Christian countries, were first contained and then
driven back.

Many of those who write about difFerent cultures have failed
to realize that the culture which the West has been spreading
throughout tlie world owes its strength, not to the Judaeo-
Hellenic-Roman synthesis, whicli constituted traditional Chris-
tianity, but to other elenu^nts which only began to be important
at tlie end of the fifteenth century. The West has stood in the
imaginations of the rest of the world, not primanl}' for Chris-
tianity, but for restless adventure, technical skill, ruthless
military efficienc} and, during the nineteenth century, for
certain ideals of liberty, and the practice of constitutional
government. Until 1914 it seemed that the spread of these ideas
was irresistible and certain. The Russian government, which
tried to maintain a traditional absolutism, was threatened by
revolutionaries and compelled, in l.OOti, to take the first step
towards parliamentary government. The ancient Empire of
China, w'hich had persisted for over two thousand years, was
overthrown by the inno\ating ardour of men wlio owed their
education to the West. Japan, which had been fiercely con-
servative and isolationivSt, opened its ports to Western trade
and its minds (more or loss) to Western ideas. There was
every reason to expect that this process wniuld continue until
all the world was culturally unified, and tlie ideas of Jefferson
and Macaulay could be preached without contradiction not only

204

COHESION AND RIVALRY

in India but in the plateaus of Tibet and the darkest recesses of
African forests. This would no doubt have happened if Europe
had not spent its warlike efficiency upon what was, essentially,
civil war. By offering the world this .spectacle of folly, Europe
lost prestige, and other continents were emboldened to as.sert
their cultural independenc'e.

Our Age, like that after the fall of the Western Empire, is
one of cultural disruption. Russian Communi.sm, like the
religion of the Prophet, is a new militant faith, which has con-
quered large areas that wore formerly Christian. China, without
reverting to its ancient traditic»ns, has decided to reject large
parts of the Western creed. Africa is in a ferment, of which the
outcome is doubtful, but may well jtrove to he a reversion to
piirnitive savagery. India still retains much of the British
heritage, but is not unlikely, under the influence of con-
servative theologians, to return to the mentality which it
enjoyed before the time of Vasco da CJama. Our world, like
that of the Dark Ages, is filled with wars and rumours of wars
anil with a rapid cultural retrogression.

Economic disruption has accompanied the growth of cultural
chaos. There is very little trade between Communist and non-
Communist countries, and even in the non-Communist parts of
the woild there is a growing belief in autarihy. It is felt that
since industrialism is the .s tci of military power, every
coimtry ought to industrialize itself as fast as possible. Tins
requires high tariff’s, a lessening of cor inerce and a diminution
in food supplies, combined with a sud k n increase in the rate
at which populations grow The tendency of such a state of
affairs is to jiromote a clash of creeds, economic disaster,
famine, and war. These evil con.sequences can only l)e avoided
if mankind decide to conduct their affairs in a manner less
insane than that now prevalent.

The West stood in the nineteenth century for Christianity,
constitutional government, commerce and scientific technique.
The first three have been rejected by the rest of the world, but

205

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

scientific technique remains. Tliis is now the only truly inter-
national element in the cultures of the world. Turbines and
hydrogen bombs are alike on both sides of the Iron Curtain. A
scientist who passes, voluntarily or involuntarily, from one side
to the other is able at once to continue his work and to find
such laboratory facilities as he had previously enjoyed. This
unity of science is quite independent of diversity in all other
respects. A man who makes a bomb for the Russians is helping
to establisli what is humorously called the Dictatorship of the
Proletariat; a man who makes a bomb for the Americans is
helping to establish wliat, with equal humour, are called the
Principles of the Sermon on the Mount. But the two men, in
spite of the vast gulf between the two cultures that they sup-
port, can, as long as they confine themselves to science and
scientific technique, converse together without any conscious-
ness of disagreement. In tliis respect at least tlie world remains
unified.

There is one other important respect in which thc^ world is
more unified than ever before, and that is as to information.
Before Columbus, Mexicans and Peruvians did not know of
each othei’'s existence, and Europe was ignorant of the Western
hemisplicre. Tliroughout the Dark Ages, China played very
little pari, and Japan played none, in the minds of Western
Europeans. When most people could not read, what was known
to those who could remained for the most part unknown to the
great majority. Now, with the diffusion of newspapers and
radio, imjM'rtant events anywhere quickly come to be known to
most people in most civilized countries. The result howe\er is
not so good as the devotees of enlightenment a century or two
ago would have exjiected. The news that is most quickly and
widely diffused is news which is exciting, and llje excitements
most easily aroused are hatred and fear. Consequently what wc
learn about potential enemies is not the common humanity
which they share with us, but rather their manifold sins and
wickedness. Hatred and fear towards possible enemies are

9.06

COHESION AND RIVALRY

feelings natural to man and having a very long history. If they
are not to dominate the relations between different communities,
the different communities must either be ignorant of each other
like the Aztecs and the Incas, or, sbice this is now impossible,
the information that is given about distant communities must
not be biased in the direction of causing horror and alarm.
But there is at present little hope of such a mitigation of
incitement to hatred.

Jvleither complete disruption nor complete cohesion has
characterized recent developments in the military sphere,
which are perhaps at the moment more important than any of
the matters we have been considering. hVom a military point of
view there are two great concentrations; tliat of tlie Communist
Bloc, and that of the Western Powers. Cohesion and rivahy
working together from the first clash of savage tribes to the
jiresent day, have gradually, by a process which has a terrible
inevitability, come to the point where each reaches the greatest
development that is compatible with the existence of the other.
The more cohesion, the greater is the chance of victory; the
more rivalr}', the greater is the motive to cohesion within each
grou]). The working of these two forces, given sufficient
technical efficiency, leads naturally to the concentration of
niilitarv power in one or otiier of two )-ival groups. And this, m
turn, if the rivalry continues "id the technical efficienc y keeps
on increasing, can hardly have any end except mutual anni-
hilation If it is to have a less tragic «'t d, rivalry must learn to
take less destructive forms. C'an men It irn to find it as del'-ght-
ful to defeat each other in sporting ev enls, as to kill each otlier?
Can they k'arn to be content with rivalry in the arts and
sciemx's and the amenities of daily life? Can they learn to be
content with a life freed from the correlative impulses of fear
and ferocity? I do not know; but if tlu; 'annot, our species is
doomed.

207

CHAPTER VI

Scientific Technique and the Future

THE discovery of how to utilize atomic energy is one of the
most important that mankind liave ever made. Attention has
been mainly concentrated hitherto upon its importance in war-
fare, but it would be quite wrong to neglect its possible peac'eful
uses. It will very soon be supplying new sources of power that
can be used especially in transport on land, on sea, and in the
air. It has already proved itself very useful in medicine and it
may in time cure nearly as many people as it will kill. Other,
more spectacular, possibilities lie in the future. The Soviet
Government has talked of using atomic power to divert the
course of the Yenisei and thereby turn large deserts into fertile
plains, Perliaps it will become possible, sooner or later, to melt
the Polar ice and so totally change the climate of Nortliern
countries. But such possibilities are as yet speculative What is
fairly certain is that in many directions it will rephue coal and
oil as a source of energy and will thereby make labour more
productive.

Given secure peace, it is of course a gain to mankind when
waj'sS are found of increasing the productivity of labour. But in
time of war, or w'hen there is an imminent threat of war,
everything that makes labour more productive is a misfortune,
since it sets free a greater proportion of the energies of nations
for the business of mutual extermination. From this point of
view the discovery of ways of releasing the energy hitherto
locked up within the atomic nucleus has been so far an unmiti-
gated misfortune. Whether it will continue to be so depends
upon the power of nations and States to adapt themselves Jp a
wholly new situation. It is the opinion of eminent men of

208

SCIENTIFIC TECHNIQUE AND THE FUTURE

science, among whom Einstein is the most eminent and one of
the most emphatic, that, if atomic warfare* not curbed, it will
probably before the end of the present century bring about the
complete extermination of mankind, and perhaps of all animal
life. There is notliing in traditional statesmanship to enable
cither politicians or the citizens whom they represent to meet
such a threat. Ever since men were first organized into armed
States there has been one simple rule: make your armaments
stronger than th<\se of any enemy whom you are likely to have
to fight, and you will either frighten liim into keeping the peace
or be victorious if he decides on war. Since both sides adopt
tliis maxim, it makes wars as bloody as the existing state of
industry permits, but it has not hitherto made victory impossible,
nor has it, as a rule, caused any very vital danger to neutrals
In the near future, unless quite novel political devices are
adopted, these conditions will fail. I do not say that they will
necessarily fail if war breaks out tomorrow, for as yet it is
probable that when both sides have expended the whole of
their j)re-war stock of bombs tlierc will still be human beings
left alive in the world; and it is also probable tliat each side
would be able to produce such disorganization on the other side
.IS would prevent the manufacture of fresh bombs while the ^var
continued. But this is a temporary and rapidly diminishing
basis lor a glimmer of hope. WHh the progress of scientific skill,
bombs will grow more deadly and their manufacture vill
become cheaper. When they become sufficientU numerous,
they will produce radio-active clouds v^'hich will drift w’ith the
wind, paying no attention to political frontiers and bringing
deatli to one region after another. This is llie prospect it the
old methods of statecraft continue unchanged.

Although atom and hydrogen bombs are a** the moment in
tlie forefront of niton’s imaginations 'Icn they tliink of the
disasters that science may bring, there is no reason to believe
that the danger wdiich they present is greater than that from
other scientific sources. Bacteriological w’arfare has not yet

209

o

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

been tried out in practice, but it is being carefully considered on
both sides of the Iron Curtain. There are men who profess to
have in a small bottle a sufficient supply of deadly micro-
organisms to destroy the whole human race. It is as yet uncer-
tain how far such methods can be successfully practised in war,
but it would not be reasonable to suppose that the necessary
disco\ cries will be long delayed. Some sentimentalists deplore
such methods on the ground that the diseases spread among
tlie enemy might cross the frontiet, but I think a certfiin
increase in ferocity might prevent this misfortune. The practice
of taking prisoners would of course have to cease, since it
would ha\e become dangerous. This perhaps neither side
would much regret. What would be felt to be more seiious is
that it would no longer be safe to send spies to eneni} coun-
tries. Nor would coiKjuerors dare to occupy what had been
enemy territory until every human being formerly occupying
tlie terntory liad either tied or died, lint gi\en all tlu‘se pre-
cautions, niilitar) men, who are apt to suffer from optimism,
might h<'pe to exterminate only the enemy by means of the
plagues that they would spread. Since both sides would enter-
tain tills hope, it is j)r()bable that both sides would succeed in
damaging the enciii}, but not in escaping ecjual damage to
themsel\es.

There are other less spectacular wa}s of producing disaster.
"J'he sod could be pc^isoiied so as to be no longer fertile, or
clis(Msc could be si)rcad among crops instead of among human
bemgs. It IS impossible to foresee^ an\ limits to tlie harm which
scicnlific ingenuity can enable men to indict upon each other.
A.s yet tliere is no sign that men shrink from the last extremity
in the way of mutual extermination. On both sides of the Iron
Curtain, h3di()g('n bombs are being manufacturc^d as fast as
possible, and on both sides it is hopcxl that tliey will ])ro\e
derisive. As \et the j)Owerful men who determine the policu's
of nations see no altcTiiative to this race tow ards mutual suicide.

Is there not in the human race sufficient common sense to

210

SCIENTIFIC TECHNIQUE AND THE FUTUEE

avert this catastrophe which no one desires? The difficulty is
that, although no one desires the result, the measures required
for preventing it are so contrary to ingrained mental habits
that it is very difficult to persuade men of their necessity. It is
so difficult that I think it will require a number of years to
produce the necessary change of outlook, and in the meantime
we must hope that the outbreak of a Third World War will be
prevented by such makeshifts and expedients as from time to
tipic seem d\ailable. If a new World War is somehow pre-
\ented, it is possible to lioj^e that in the course of the next ten
or twenty years even politicians will become capable of under-
standing public affairs in the new terms that are now necessary.

If mt‘n aie to escape from the consequences of their own
childish cleverness, the\ will have to learn, in all the poweifiil
countries of the world, or at any rate in America and Russia,
to think, not of separate groups of men, but of m\n. Never
before has man as man been in danger, never before have the
rivalries of different groups threatened universal extinction. It
lias b<*(ome an anachronism to think of politics in terms of
possible victory. If the human race is to persist, this truth will
have to be acknowledged and acted upon, not only by the
W'^e^stern Powers, but also by those w'hieh are now doininat(‘d by
the antiquated ninc^tcenth century philosophy derived from
Marx Such a hoj^e may at tl njomcnt seem visionar}, but I
do not iced convinced that even Communist rulers will persist
indefinitely in a polic}^ if becomes entirely evident that tlicy
cannot in this wav achieve the w’orld dominion to whicli their
missionary zeal, as well as their love of power, impels them.

Every increase of skill demands, if it is to produce an increase
and not a diminulion of human happiness, a c*orrclalivc increase
of wisdom. Tliere has been during the last hundred and fifty
vears an unprecedented increase of skd’ and there is no sigii
that the ])ace of this increase is slackening. But there has not
been even the slightest increase of wisdom. The maxims of
statecraft are still those that were in v^ogue in the eighteenth

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

century. The slogans by which men win elections are just as
foolish as they used to be. Short-sighted greed blinds com-
munities to their long-run interests quite as much as it ever
did. Skill without wisdom is the cause of our troubles. If they
are to be cured, it will be not by a mere increase of skill, but
by the growth of such wisdom as the times demand. We
shudder at the tliought of the extermination of Man, but it is
not enough to shudder. It is the imperative duty of us all in the
perilous years that lie ahead to struggle to replace the gld
crude passions of hate and greed and envy by a new wisdom
based upon the realization of our common danger, a danger
created by our own folly, and curable only by a diminution of
that folly. When you hate, you generate a reciprocal hate.
When individuals hate each other, the harm is finite; but when
great groups of nations hate each other, the harm may be
infinite and absolute. Do not fall back upon the thought tliat
those whom you hate deserve to be hated. I do not know
whether anybody deserves to be hated, but I do know tliat
hatred of those wlioni we believe to be evil is not what will
redeem mankind. The only thing that will redeem mankind is
co-operation, and the first step towards co-operation lie« in the
hearts of individuals. It is common to wish wxdl to oneself, but
in our technically unified world, wishing well to oneself is sure
to be futile unless it is combined with wishing well to others.
This is an ancient doctrine, wliich has been preached by wise
men in many ages and in many lands— hitherto in vain. But
now^ at last, if any of us arc to survive, practical politics must
learn to take account of a kind of wi.sdom whicli practical men
hat e hitherto thought too gootl for this world.

CHAPTER Vll

TVill Religions Faith Cure Our Troubles ?

THERE is a theory, which is winning wide-spread acceptance in
the Western World, to the effect tliat what is afflicting the
nations is due to the decay of religious faith. I think lhi.s tlicory
completely contrary to the truth. In so far as faith has anytliing
to do with the matter, there is a great deal more faith in the
world than there was at a somew'hat earlier time. Rut, in a«‘tual
fact, the chain of causation which has led to the perilous position
in which we find ourselves is, as I shall try to .show, almost
wholly independent of men’s beliefs, which are an effect rather
than a cause of what is amiss.

What has happened in the world since idl-tf has proceeded
w'ltli a kind of inecitability that is like that of Greek tragedy. It
is an ijic\itability derived, not from external circum.stan''ts, but
from the characters of the actors. I.et us briefly trace the stc])s
in this development.

The Geimans in 1914 thought themselves strong enough to
sc'cure bv force an empire ■ 'mj>.arable to tliost of Britain,
France, and Ru.ssia. Britain, France and Russia combined to
thwart this ambition. Russia w'as defe fed and, in the Revolu-
tion of 1917 , abandoned its traditioi,al Imperialistic pclicy.
The We.st had promised C onstantinojde to the Russians, bur,
when the Russians made a separate peace, this promise fell
through. Britain and France, with the help of America, defeated
the CTcrmans after the Germans had defeated the Russians.
I'hc Cjcrmans were compelled to accept ‘1 e humiliating I'rcaty
of Versailles and to profess a belief in their sole war-guilt.
They were “wicked” because they had made war. The Ru.ssians
were “wicked” because they had made a separate peace, and,

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS'

Still more, because they had repudiated their war debts. All the
victorious nations combined to fight Russia, but were defeated,
and were somewhat surprised to find that Russia no longer
loved them. The Germans meanwhile suffered great distress,
wliich w^as much aggravated when the folly of the American
Republican Government brought about the Great Depression.
Suffering produced hysteria, and hy.^teria produced Hitler. The
Western nations, hoping that Hitler would attack Russia, did
not oppose him. They had opposed the comparatively blameless
W’eimar Republic, but in befriending Hitler they proved to all
mankind that they were totally destitute of moral standards.
Hitler, fortunately, was mad, ana, owing to madness, brouglit
about his own downfall. The West hafl been delighted to accept
Russia's help in bringing about this result, and, wduToas at llie
end of the First World War Russia and Germany had been
alike weak, Rusvsia at the end of the St»cond World W^ar was
strong, Kritain w^as traditionally hostile to Russia, but from
15)07 to 15)17 had been forced into a semblance of friendship
witli that country by fear of Germany. At the end of tlie Second
World W'ar a (juite new international pattern de\elopefl.
Western Europe liad ceased to count. Russia and tlie United
States w'cre alone powerful. As has always happened in the
past in more or less similar situations, these two Great Powers
w'ere mutually hostile. Each saw a Lhance of world hegemony
Russia inlieritcd the j)olicy of Philip II, Napoleon and the
Kaiser. America inlierited the policy wiiich England had j)ursued
throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth c'enturies.

In all this there w^as nothing new except tcchnic[uc. The con-
flicts of (jrreat Powers were just what they had ahva\s been,
except that technique had made Great Powers greater and war
more destructive. The situation would be exactly what it is if
Russia still adhered to the Orthodox Church. We in the Wc >t
should, in that case, be pointing out w^liat we consider heretical
in the Greek Church. What our propaganda would be can be
seen by anybody who reads the records of the Crimean War.

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WILL RELIGIOUS FAITH CURE OUR TROUBLES?

I am not in anj^ way defending the prcsept Russian regime any
more than I should defend the Czarist regime. What I am
saying is tliat tl^e two are closely similar, although the one was
Christian and the other is not. I am saying also that, if llie
])resent Government of Russia were Christian, the situation
would het exactly what it is. The cause of conflict is the ancient
clash of power politics. It is not fundamentally a clash between
faith and un-faith, or between one faith and anc'iher, but
hotw^een two mighty h2mpircs, each of which sees a c*hance of
world supi*emacy.

Nobody can preU*nd tliat the First World War was in any
degree due to lack of Christian faith in tlie rulers v\ho lirought
it about. The CVar, the Kaiser, and the Emperor of Austria were
all earnest Christians. So was Sir Edward Grey, and so \\ ts
PrcMckiit Wilson. There was only one prominent politician at
that time wlio was not a Christian. "I'hat w^as Jean Jaurev, a
Socialist who opposed the war and was assassinated w'ilh tlic
ap])ro\al of almost all French Christians In England the only
members of the Cabinet who resigned from disapproval of the
W ar wxTe John Burns and Lord xVIorley, a noted atheist. In
Germiiiiy likcwvise the only opposition came from atheists under
the leadership of Liebknecht. In Russia, when the atheists
aci[iured power, their first act was to make peace. The Bol-
sheviks, it is true, did not remain peaceful, but tliat is hardly
surprising in \iew of the fact that all the victorious Christian
nations attacked tliein.

But let us leave the details of politics and considcT our
qiiesti(*n more generally. Christians hold that their faith does
good, but other laiths do harm. At any rate, they hold this
about the Communist faith. What I wdsh to maintain that
all faiths do harm. W'e may define “faith** as a firm beliel* in
something for which there is no evidence. Where there is
evidence, no one speaks of “faith". We do not speak of faith
that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only
speak of faith when we wdsh to substitute emotion for evidence.

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS ANP POLITICS

The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife,
since different groups substitute different emotions. Christians
have faith in the Resurrection, Communists have faith in
Marx's Theory of Value. Neither faith can be defended ration-
ally, and each therefore is defended by propaganda and, if
necessary, by war. The two are equal in this respect. If you
think it immensely important that people should believe some-
thing which cannot be rationally defended, it makes no differ-
ence what the something is. Where you control the govern-
ment, you teach the something to the immature minds of
children and you burn or prohibit books which teach the con-
trary. Where you do not control the government, you will, if
you are strong enough, build up armed forces with a \icw to
conquest. All this is an inevitable consequence of any strongly-
held faith unless, like the Quakers, you are content to remain
forever a tiny minority.

It is completely mysterious to me that there are apparently
sane people who think that a belief in Christianity might
prevent war. Such people seem totally unable to learft anything
from history. The Roman State became Christian at the time of
Constantine, and was almost continually at war until it ceased
to exist. The Christian States which suc'ceeded to it continued
to fight each other, though, it must be confessed, tliej also
from time to time fought states which were not Cliristian.
From the time of Constantine to the present day there has been
no shred of evidence to show that Christian States are less war-
like than others. Indeed, some of the most ferocious wars ha\e
been due to disputes between different kinds of Christianity.
Nobody can deny that Luther and Loyola w^ere Christians,
nobody can deny that their differences were associated with a
long period of ferocious wars.

There are those who argue that Christianity, though it may
not be true, is very useful as promoting social cohesion, and,
though it may not be perfect, is better than any other faith that
lias the same social effectiveness. I will admit that 1 would

216

WILL RELIGIOUS FAITH CURE OUR TROUBLES?

rather see the whole world Christian t}\an Marxist. I find the
Marxist faith more repellent than any other that has been
adopted by civilized nations (except perhaps the Aztecs). But I
am quite unwilling to accept the view that social cohesion is
impossible exce])t by the help of useful lies. I know that this
view has the sanction of Plato and of a long line of practical
politicians, but I think that even from a practical point of view
it is mistaken. It is not necessary for purposes of self-defence
where rational arguments suffice. It is necessary for a crusade,
but I cannot think of any case in which a crusade has done any
good whatever. When people regard Christianity as part of
re-armament they are taking out of it whatever spiritual merit
it may have. And, in order that it may be effective as re-arma-
ment, it is generally thought that it must be pugnacious, dog-
matic and narrow-minded. When people think of Christianity
as a help in fighting the Russians, it is not the Quaker type of
Christianity that they have in view, but something more in the
style of Senator McCarthy. What makes a creed effective in
war is its negative aspect, that is to say, its hatred of those
who do not adopt it. Without this hatred it serves no bellicose
purpo.se. But as soon as it is used as a weapon of war, it is the
hatred of un-believers that becomes prominent. Consequently,
when two faiths fight each other each develops its worst
aspects, and even copies whatever it imagines to be effective in
the faith that it is combating.

The belief that fanaticism promotes success in war is one
that is not borne out by history, although it is constantly
assumed by those who cloak their ignorance under the name of
'‘realism’'. When the Romans coiKiuered the Mediterranean
world, fanaticism played no part in their success. The motives
of Roman Generals were either to acquire the gold reserves of
temples with a view^ to keeping half for themselves and giving
half to their soldiers, or, as in the case of Caesar, to gain the
prestige which would enable them to win elections in Rome
and defy their creditors. In the early contests of Christians and

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

Mohammedans it was, the Christians who were fanatical and
the Mohammedans who were successful. Christian propaganda
has invented stories of Mohammedan intolerance, but these
are wholly false as applied to the early centuries of Islam.
Every Christian has been taught the story of the Caliph des-
troying the Library of Alexandria. As a matter of fact, tliis
Library was frequently destroyed and frequentlj^ re-created.
Its first destroyer was Julius Caesar, and its last antedated the
Prophet. The early Mohammedans, unlike the C’hristians,
tolerated those w^hom they called "people of the Book", pro-
vided they paid tribute. In contrast to the Christians, who
persecuted not only pagans but each other, the Mohammedans
wT^re welcomed for their broadmindedness, and it was largely
this that facilitated their conquests. To come to later limes,
Spain was ruined by fanatical hatred of Jews and Moors;
France was disastrously impoverislied by the [XTseculion of
Huguenots; and one main cause of Hitler's defeat was Iiis
failure to employ Jews in atomic research. Ever since ilie time
of Archimedes war has been a science, and profit ic^ncj in
science has been a main cause of \utory. But proticieiuy in
science is very difficult to combine with fanaticism. We all
know how, under the orders of Stalin, Russian biologists were
compelled to subscribe to lAsenk('\s erroi^. It is ob\ious to
every person capable of free scientific incjuirv that the dc'ctrines
of Lysenko are less likely to increase the wheat suppl} of
Russian tlian those of orthodox geneticists are to increase the
wheat supply of the West I tliink it is also Aery doubtful
whether nuclear research can long continue to flourish in such
an atmosphere as Stalin produced in Russia. Perhaps Russia is
now going to become liberal, and perhaps it will be in the
United States that bigotry will hamper atomic research. As to
this, I express no opinion. But, howx‘ver this may be, it is clear
that, without intellectual fre(*dom, scientific warfare is not
likely to remain long successful.

But let us look at\his matter of fanaticism somewhat more

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WILL RELIGIOUS FAITH CURE OUR TROUBLES?

broadly. The contention of those who advocate fanaticism
without being fanatics is, to my mind, not only false, but
ignoble. It seems to be thought that unless everybody in a
nation is compelled, either by persecution or by an education
which destroys the power of thought, to believe things which
no rational man can believe, that nation will be so tom by
dissensions or so paralyzed by hesitant doubts that it will
inevitably come to grief. Not only, as I have already argued, is
there no historical evidence for this view, but it is also quite
contrary to what ought to be expected. When a British military
expedition marched to Lhasa in 1905, the Tibetan soldiers at
first opposed it bravely, because the Priests had pronounced
charms which afforded protection against lead. When tlie
soldiers nevertheless w^ere killed, the Priests ex('us(d tlieni-
selves on the ground that the bullets contained nickel, against
which their charms had been powerless. After this, the British
troops encountered little opposition. Philip II of Spain was so
persuaded that Heaven must bless his warfare against the
heretics that he neglected entirely to consider tlie difference
between fighting the English and fighting the Turks, and
so he was defeated. There is a very widespread belief that
pe(^ple can be induced to believe w’hat is rontrarj' to fact
in one domain while remaining scientific in another. This is
not the case. It is by no means easy to keep one's mind
open to fresh evidence, and it is almost impossible to achieve
this in one direction, if, in another, one has a carefully fostered
blindne.ss.

There is something feeble, and a little contemptible, about a
man who cannot face the perils of life w^ithout the help of
comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is
aware that they arc myths and that he believes them only
because they arc comforting. But he dare not face this thought,
and he therefore cannot carry his owm reflec tions to any logical
conclusion. Morc'over, since he is aware, however dimly, that
liis opinions are not rational, ho becomes furious when they are

219

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

disputed. He therefore, adopts persecution, censorship, and a
narrowly cramping education as essentials of statecraft. In so
far as he is successful, he produces a population which is timid
and unadventurous and incapable of progress. Authoritarian
rulers have always aimed at producing such a population. They
have usually succeeded, and by their success have brought
their countries to ruin.

Many of the objections to what is called "faith’* do not
depend in any way upon what the faith in question may be.
You may believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible or of the
Koran or of Marx’s CapttaL Whichever of these beliefs you
entertain, you have to close your mind against evidence; and if
you close your mind against evidence in one respect, you w'ill
also do so in another, if the temptation is strong. The Duke of
Wellington never allowed himself to doubt the value of the
playing fields of Eton, and was therefore never able to accept
the superiorit} of the rifle to the old-fashioned musket. You
may say tliat belief in God is not as harmful as belief in the
playing fields of Eton. I will not argue on this point, ^except to
say that it becomes harmful in proportion as you secretly doulU
whether it is in amirdance with the farts. The important thing
is not what you believe, but how you believe it. There was a
time when it w'as rational to believe that the earth is flat. At
that time this belief did not have the bad conse(|ucnces belong-
ing to what is called "faith". But the people who, in our day,
persist in believing that the earth is flat, have to close tlieir
minds against reason and to open them to every kind of
absurdity in addition to the one from which they start. If you
tliink that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it
by argument, rather than by persei'ution, and will abandon it if
the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on
faith, you will realize that argumemt is useless, and will tlu^ie-
fore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by
stunting and distorting tlie minds of the young in what is
called "education". ThiwS last is peculiarly dastardly, since it

•220

WILL RELIGIOUS FAITH CURE OUR TROUBLES?

. takes advantage of the defencelcssnesj of immature minds.
Unfortunately it is practised in a greater or less degree in the
schools of every civilized country.

In addition to the general argument against faith, there is
something peculiarly odious in the contention that the principles
of tlie Sermon, on the Mount are to be adopted with a vi(»w to
making atom bombs more effective. If I were a Cliristian, I
should consider this the absolute extreme of blasphemy.

, I do not believe that a decay of dogmatic belief can do any-
tliing but good. I admit at once that new systems of dogma,
such as those of the Nazis and the Communists, are even worse
than the old systems, but they could never have ai'ciuired a hold
over men's minds if orthodox dogmatic habits had not been
instilled in youth. Stalin's language is full of remini m enc'cs of
the theological seminary in which he received his training.
What the world needs is not dogma, but an attitude of scien-
tific inquir}, combined with a beliet that the torture of millions
is not dcMrable, wliother inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity
imagined in the likeness of the believer.

CHAPTER VIII

Conquest ?

IN this chapter I wish to consider wiiat part, if any, can be
played by military force in the establishment of a single world-
wide authority such as could make large-scale wars impossible.
In the present state of tension, there is a likelihood, or at least
a possibility, that on one side or another apprehension and
insecurity may become unbearable. If that happens, it will
bring with it a belief that a solution is to be found in victory of
our own side (whiche\cr that may be) after a world war in
which the other side will have suffered irretrievable defeat.
This is in fact one of the chief reasons for uneasiness while the
East-West tension lasts. There may easily come a^inoment
when the nervous strain becomes unbearable. For this reason,
if ioi no other, it is v/orth w^hile to examine what liopes ot a
happy issue there woukl be if a world war were to begin in
circumstances like those now existing.

If a world war were to begin tomorrow, there would be three
logically possible issues: There might be a \ictory ot the West,
there might be a Communist victory; or the war might tmd in
a draw^ In this last event, there would remain two future
possibilities: the resulting peace, like the Treaty of Amiens,
might be merely a breathing-space during wliich both sides
w'ould prepare to renew the combat as soon as possible; or it
might, like the Treaty of Westphalia* at the end of the Thirty
Years War, mark the end of an epocli of ideological strife
and inaugurate a period of mutual toleration. I do not wish,
at the moment, to consider what would happen if the war
ended in a draw, leaving the combatants intact as organized
States. What I wish to consider is whether any desirable

2£2

CONQUEST?

form of world government could emprge from the victory
of either side.

Let us first consider the hypothesis of a Soviet victory.
Painful as such an hypothesis must be to all who are not Com-
munists, I am afraid that, as things are, it must be admitted to
be possible. This would not have been the case in the first
years after 19*1*5, while America still had the monopoly of the
atom bomb. But at that time the American Government had not
j^ct made up its mind that hostility to Russia was inevitable,
and the American armed forces, having won their war, were
anxit)us to come home and very unwilling to embark upon
another war. Now that the political situation has changed, the
military situation also is different, partly because China has
become Communist, but still more because Russia possesses
atom and hydrogen bombs. The situation therefore is one in
which the victory of the West cannot be assumed as a certainty.

What would happen to the world if the Russians were com-
pletely victorious, and their armed forces occupied strategic
])ositions in the United States as well as throughout Western
Eurojie? Would it then be possible to establish throughout the
world subservient satellite governments such as those which
the Russians have established in Poland, Hungary, and Czecho-
slovakia.^ And would it b'^' possible, by means of sucli govern-
ments, to establish Communist authority firmly throughout the
v\orlJ" 1 do not for a moment believe it. Wc have seen already,
in Eastern Germany, the difficulty of subduing a Western
ci\ilizccl community. But the population of Eastern Germany is
small and its frontiers are close to those of Russia. The problem
of holding dow'n by force a very large and bitterly hostile
population, such as that of the United States would be, is one
which the resources of terrorism and secret police would soon
find beyond their pow'ers. An Empire of the East established
by conquest would inevitably fall apart as did those of Attila
and Timur. If it fell apart and powerful portions of the Western
World reconquered their independence, bitterness, hate and

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

fear would be far more dominant even than they are at present,
and all the energies of the West would be absorbed by the hope of
revenge. We must conclude therefore that along these lines there
is no hope of the creation of a better world, or even of a lasting
unification of the world under a tyrannical totalitarian regime.

Let us consider next what would be likely to happen in the
event of a Western victory. As to this, I think we may judge
from what has been happening in Germany and Japan. In both
these countries, in spite of the reluctance of France in the ore
case and Australia in the other, re-armament is being encouraged,
and there is no security that their governments, twenty years
hence, will be any better than those overthrown as a result of
the Second World War. An outcome similar to this would be
even more certain after a victory by the West in a Third World
War. Russia and China together are too vast to be held down
by force for any length of time. The belief, in America, that the
tiouble is Communism rather than the ri\'ilry of Great Powers
would cause the Russians and Chinese to be cjuickly f()rgiven if
they made a parade of ceasing to be Cc>mmunist. Nationalism,
which is the real cause of trouble, would remain, and there
w'ould soon again be a state of tension analogous to that which
exists at present

For such reasons, I do not think that a great war (‘iiding in
conquest by either side is likely to bring about any lasting
impnnement. I am leaving out of account the destruction
involved in a great war and th(‘ possibility that organized
government everywhere might break ilown. I ha\c bei^n, in
what has been said above, accepting the assumptions of mili-
tarists as regards the conduct of the war and considering only
what, granting these assumptions, will be the result when war
once more gives place to politics. If this argument is valid, we
must look ultimately to agreement betw'een East and West,
and not merely to a supremacy of armed force.

I do not however wish to deny that, if a world government i.s
ever established, some clement of force may be involved in

224

CONQUEST?

niakiiig it universal. The question, like many others in politics,
is quantitative, and must not be dealt with on a basis of abstract
principle. What does emerge from our argument is that a
world government cannot be established in the face of opposi-
tion from large and important countries, especially when that
opposition has the bitterness resulting from defeat in war. But
if all the powerful nations were agreed, they might still have to
bring pressure to bear, especially in the less civilized parts of
tlT;e world. This pressure no doubt could usually acliieve its
object without actual war; but, if actual war were necessary in
any particular case, it could be a brief war, doing no vital
damage to mankind. Such considerations however belong to a
somewhat distant fuliire.

A Third World War, however it may end, will, like its two
predecessors, solve no problems, but on the contrary create a
world even wonse than that existing before its oiitbreak. The
aim of statesmanship should be to peisuade both sides of this
truth, and also to persuade (»ach side that the truth is acknow-
ledged by the other side. W(‘ of the West are by no means
persuaded that Ru.ssia will not embark upon an unprovoked
attack. And, although this may seem absurd to us, tlie Russians
e<iually are not persuaded that we shall abstain from attack if
we think the military situation propitious. I do nc't think the
world can improve so long as these mutual suspuions exist.
Improvement ( an only come when each side is persuaded that,
although the other side will resist aggression, it will not
inaugurate aggression If both sides wen* convinced of this,
genuine negotiations and a real diminution of tension would
become possible. This can scarcely be done while each side is
engaged, with all the rhetorical skill at its command, in pointing
out tlie wickedness of the other side I do not mean to deny the
existence of such wickedness, I wish only to say that no useful
purpose is served by emphasizing it on both sides. Perhaps the
first and easiest step towards pacificatiem would be an agree-
ment on both sid(‘s to keep hostile propaganda within bounds,
p 1225

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

The next step should be to allow truthful information to cross
the Iron Curtain. At present, as everyone realizes, the Russians
;ire not allowed to know the truth about the West. The West
is not so well aware of the fact that a great campaign is being
waged in America to purge libraries of books that give infor-
mation about Russia. Such obstacles to mutual understanding
<io nothing but harm and only inflame the passions leading to
the futility of a third useless world conflict.

In what I have been saying hitherto on the subject of a Third
World War, I have accepted, as was said above, some of tlu*
assumptions habitually made by military men, but I do not
think it can be taken by any means as certain that these assum[>-
tions will be borne out by the event. If a war begins, as it well
may, by the destruction of great cities, the total disruption of
communications, and the setting ablaze* of oil-fields, it may
lead to large armies being left Avithout food, and thtTefore
driven to pillage. And this process might easily end in complen*
anarcliy. In regions and countries that had lived <m imported
food, a large proportion of the population would die of starva-
tion, while food-])roducing regions would have to share their
crops with marauding soldiery. This would produce a situation
like that when the Roman Empire broke up. f Jreat States would
melt away, and little local units would take their plaie. The
leaders of robber bands would estalilish themselves as local
despots and supply their bodyguards with adequate food in
return for protection against popular fury. Such fighting as
would continue would no long(T he the grand organized war-
fare depending upon atom bombs, aeroplanes and oil, but a
much more old-fashioned and primitive kind, such as could
survive the destruction of all centres of indiistr}. Out of such
universal anarchy, mankind would probably climb in the course
of a thousand years to a renewal of what is called ‘'c ivUi/ation*’,
which would enable them, if they had learnt nothing mean-
while, to repeat the whole useless process oiue more

Tliis forecast, however, like our earlier ones, perhaps errs on

226

CONQUEST?

the side of optimism. We must not forget the possibility that
scientific’ warfare, before it brings itself to an end, may exter-
minate the human race. With every year that the Third World
War is postponed, this ('onsumination becomes more probable.
Sliall we, on this ground, hope to sec the Third World War
break out as soon as possible? Such a hope would be rational if
we felt obliged to despair of the possibility of a modicum of
self-preservative wisdom in the politicians who direct our
destinies and the fanatical public who support them. I, for my
part, ha\c not yet rcaclied this depth of despair. I still think
that, if war can be averted long enough to give time for the
ilangers to be wddely aj)prchended, constructive statesmanship
may lead the way to th(‘ total prevention of large-scale w^ars.
The measures required will be drastic, and will run counter to
powcTful prejudices, hut perhaps the danger will nevertheless
forc'e their adoption What these measures will have to be, 1
nIuiI c onsider in another chapter.

Chapter ix

Steps Toufards a Stable Peace

IT is as yt't a very doubtful question whether human society
organized on a basis of scientific technique can or cannot J)e
stable. I have discussed this <|uestion in Chapter VII of The
Impact of Science on Society.^ I will not therefore disTuss it
afresh, but will ejuote the comiusion arri\ed at in that Chapter:

"My conclusion is that a scientific society can be stable given
certain conditions. Tlie first of these is a single gov ernment of
the whole world, possessing a monopoly of armed force and
therefore able to enforce peace. The second condition is a
general diffusion of prosperity, so that there is no occasion for
envy of one part of the world by another. I'he tliircT condition
(wliich supposes the second fulfilled) is a low birtli rate every-
where, so that the po|ndation of the world becomes stationary,
or nearly so The fourth condition is tiie prc/vision for individual
initiative both in work and in pla\, and the greatest diffusion
of power coinpatibl(‘ with maintaining the necessary political
and economic framework,"

I'ntil these conditions are realized, a scientifically organized
world will continue to run certain grave risks. Of these, the
most c'atastrophic is the extinction eff the human species in a
large-scale w ar. Short of this, there is a clanger of collapse into
anarchy arid a general lowering of the level of civilization.
Such a prexess must inevitably be accr^mpanied by a})palling
suffering, since it will involve the dc‘alh by violence or starva-
tion of about half the population of the globe. Sane men must
therc'fore wish to see the world moving towards the fulfilment
of the conditions requirc'd for stability. It cannot be said that at

^ London: CIcorge Allen and Lnwin.

228

STEPS TOWARDS A STABLE PEACE

present the world is travelling in this direction. What hope is
there of a more constructive movement in the not too distant
future?

War, as was argued in the preceding cliapter, does not
appear to be a road towards better things, no matter what may
be its outcome. Those who place tlie futun* of mankind above
tile game of momentary power-politics must tlierefore hope
that, before an explosion occurs, both sides in the present
c<)nHict of lOast and West will realize its futility and will
become willing to give and accej)! convincing assurances of
tneir mutual determination to preserve the peace.

Wliat could be the first steps in «uch a process? Kast and
West alike an* governed at the moment by fanatics so obsessed
by ea<'h other’s wick(‘dness as to imagine that each other’s
destruction would bring the millennium. The Soviet (iovern-
jnenl ac(e|)ts an ideohigy according to which bate has al\Na\s
be('n, and still is, the moving force in human affairs. It believes,
with tli(‘ superstitious fervency oi unquestioned dogma, that an
iiUenurine struggle between C\ipitalism and Communism has
been decreed by the blind forces of economic rletenninism, and
that this struggle, when it comes, must end, as the Marxist
Sripturcs foretell, in the world-\»ide victory of Communism.
All lliis oi coiirsi is a inylli wlii('Ii cannot be accej^ted by anyone
capable of rational lliouglu.

But how is this fanaticism to be prevented from doing its evil
work? There is a view, wdiich appears at the moment to be
getting an increasing hold upon public ojunion in America, tliat
fanaticism can only be combated by fanaticism, that the way
to combat Communism is to proclaim the wickedness of Com-
munists, to s)>read terror of their macliinations, and to do
everything possible to prevent knowledge and understanding
of their outlook

This is not what statesmanship demands. If, as we have
been arguing, the solution of the world’s troubles is not to be
found in war, it must be found in tonciliation and in a gradual

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HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

diminution of mutual hate and fear. The difficulty of inaugurating
a conciliatory policy arises through the belief on both sides that
safety is only to be found in armaments. The population of
Russia has to be content with poor food and clothing, inaile-
quate housing, and general liardship, while energy and skill are
lavished upon preparations for war. In the United States,
Congress has to be persuaded that this is not the moment for
lowering the income tax, and it can t nly be persuaded of this
by a vast campaign painting the Soviet menace in the blackest
possible colours. One of the things that make tliis situation so
apparently hopeless is tliat it ha? on both sides a certain low-
level rationality. Each side believes that the other will attack if
it has a good hope of victory. Each side is therefore persuaded
that its armaments must be strong enough to deter the other
side from attack. When either side increases its armanumts, the
other side's fears are increawsed, and therefore the other side's
armaments are still further increased. Neither side dares to
start the conciliatory movement or to emphasize the ^'ils to all
mankind that would result from war, for, if it does so, the other
side, it is thought, will take such action as a proof of fear <md
will therefore be encouraged in bellicosilj The situation is
exactly like that which used to arise in the days of duelling,
when two men, ncitluT of whom wished to kill or be killed,
were driven on by die lear of being thought cowardl\. I*ri\ate
duelling has died out, hut the international duel remains, witli
exactly the same' alxsiird psychology

What can he done' tc' lessen mutual suspicion.^ For the
reasons that we liave |ust been coiisidcTing, it is difficult for
either the ("omniunist or the anti-Comniunist bl(K to lake the
first step. The first step mu.st, I think, be taken by neutral
Powers. The\ have two advantages: one of tliese is that they
cannot be accused of cowardice, the other, wliic'h is c‘\en more
important, is that they can speak to (t(w eminent s without
being suspected of bostilitj In Western countries, public
opinion is still a force. But to have any influence upon Russia,

230

STEPS TOWARDS A STABLE PEACE

it is necessary to be able to persuade the Russian Government
— and only Governments can hope to do this with any effect.

1 should like to see the G<jvemment of India appoint a Coni-
niission, consisting solely of Indians, who should be eminent
politicians, economists, scientists or military men, the purpose
of the Commission being to investigate in a wholly neutral
spirit the evils to be expected if the cold war became hot, evils
not by any means (\)nfined to the belligerents but afflicting
neutrals also, though probabl}^ in a lesser degree. I should wish
tlu' (Tovernment of India to present this report to the Govern-
ments of all the Great Powers, and to invite them to express
either agreement or disagreement with its forecasts. I think
that, if the work of the Commission were adequately performed,
disagreement would be very difficult. It might in this w^ay
become possible to persuade Governments on both sides that
neither side (<uild hope to gain by aggression. I do not myself
believe that at the present moment either side contemplates
aggression, but oa('h side suspects that tlie other may do so,
and this suspicion does almost as much harn) as if it were well-
founded. What neutrals \\oukl have to achieve is to allay this
suspicion and to j)ersiia(le each side to a genuine' belief that the
other side will onh fight if attacked. I tlo not know wiiether, in
the immediate future, il would Ix' possible to bring about this
belief on both sides, but I think it would bec<»me much easier
to bring about if it wen* backed by an authoritative neutral
investigation demonstrating with-mt bias liow little eillier side
could liope to gain f)v aggression. I'he argumenrs of self-
interest are so obvious, .so conclusive and so overwhelming
lliat, if they were forcibly pre.-^ented by a Powder standing out-
side the conflict, they ought after a period of consideration to
produce their effect both in the Fa'^t and in the West.

If once it were agreed and acknv)W lodged on bolli sides that
war is not tlie solution, negotiations would S(x)n become
possible and th(* tension vvould rapidly grow less. The first
step would be to ditnin'^sli the asperities of official propaganda

231

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

and restore traditional courtesies in diplomatic intercourse.
The next step would be a Congress to consider all the points in
dispute, and to seek such solutions as should give stability
rather than such as involved diplomatic victory for this side or
that. To anyone not Idinded by partisan feeling, it must be
obvious that the world cannot settle down while Germany
remains divided and while recognition is refused to the de facto
Government of China. The problem of Germany can only be
solved by Russian concessions, and the problem of China can
only be solved by American concessions. If each side wer(‘
genuinely actuated by the wish to diminish the risk of war,
.such mutual concessions would no longer be so difficult a-> the\
are at present. And I think that in bringing about the necessary
state of mind on both sides, neutral Powtts can play a bene-
ficent and decisive part.

If the immediate causes of tension wei’e removed, w'hether b\
the above method or by an} other, it would be possible to
begin a movement towards the solution of long-raifge prob-
lems. Of these, the first to be tackled would probably have to
be the internationalizing of the control of atomic eneTgy.
America made a wholly praiseworthy endeavour in this direc-
tion at the end of the last war, but Russian suspicions made the
endeavour abortive. Since that time Russian su.spitions have'
not grown less, and American suspicions have hardened \\e
must hope for a reversal of this process, and I think that a
reversal has become more possible siiue both sides liave
possessed atom and hydrogen bombs.

It will not be easy to induce either Russia or America to
surrc‘nder absolute national independence, but until this is done
the world will not be safe. I think the best that can be hoped is
a detente duiing which the fear of war is not imminent, and a
gradual growth, w'hile the detente lasts, of a realization that
certain kinds of liberty, which have seemed very precious, are
no longer j)ossible in a planet which techniejue lias made small
and overcrowded. Everybody accustomed to urban life accepts

i>32

STEPS TOWARDS A STABLE PEACE

as a matter of course various limitations on liberty which are
not necessary in a sparsely populated countryside. The moment
a crowd congregates anywhere in a town, the police say, “Pass
along, please", and nobody is indignant. Tlie anarchic liberty
enjoyed hitherto by nations is just as impossible in the modern
\\orld as would be anarchic liberty for either j)edestrians oi
motorists in the streets of London or New York.

But if any kind of international government is to become
possible, tliere must be a dinjinution of fanaticism. There must:
b(‘ a habit of viewing communities scientifically ratlier than
passionately. It is not by savage detestation of undesirable
<'onduct that it is brought to an end. In the eighteenth century
in England thieves were hanged, and there was a gnMt deal
more thie\ ing than there is now. If Russian fanaticism is to
grow less, it will not be because American fanaticism lias
grown greater. On tlie contrary, American fanaticism is a
product of RuwSsian fanaticism, and its only probable eftec't is a
nxerberaiion which still further increases the Russian fiinatic-
isin that c'aused it. If the world is to he unified, as it must be if
It IS to survi\e, it can only be by a spread of the scientific spirit.

I mean by this, not technical cleverness, but the habit of judging
by evidence and suspending judgment wheie e\idence is
lacking. wScic*nce, botli for good and evil, is what is distinctive
of our time. I’anatk'isms, wdp^ther Hindu or Moslem or Catholic
or Communist, are a legacy of the Middle Ages. One of the
first things that would have tc^ be done during a period of
diHente would be a cessation everywhere of governmental
encouragement to fanatical blindness and the liatred which it
generates,

'^riiere are some things that all human beings have in com-
mon. One of these - -perhaj)S \hv nmst important— is the
capacity for suft'ering. We have it in our power to diminish
immeasurably the sum of suffering and miser v in the world,
but we sliall not succeed in this while we allow opposite irra-
tional beliefs to divide the luim<tn race into mutually liostile

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

groups. A wise humanity, in politics as elsewhere, comes only
of remembering that even the largest groups are composed of
individuals, that individuals can be happy or sad, and that
every individual in the world who is suffering represents a
failure of human wisdom and of ('ominon humanity. The aims
of statesmanship should not be abstract. They should be as
concrete as the affection of parents for young children. The
world needs wisdom and human warmth in equal measure.
Roth are lacking at the moment, but not, one ma\ hope.,
forev (M'

CHAPTER X

Prologue or Epilogue Y

MAN, as time counts in geology and in the history of evolution,
is a very recent arrival in his planet. For cr)untless millions of
years only very simple animals existed. During other countless
millions, new types gradually evoked — fishes, reptiles, birds
and, at last, mammals. Man, the species to which we liaj>pen
to belong, has existed for, at most, a million years, and has
possessed his present brain capacity for only about half tliat
time. But recent as is the emergence of man in the history of
the universe, and <‘ven in the history of life, the emergence of
his titanic powers, at once terrifying and splendid, is v(‘rv mu<ii
more recent. It is only about six thousand years since man dis-
c'ovored his capacity for distinctively human a('tivities. These
ix'gan, we may say, with the invention of writuig and the
organization of govenunent. Since the h(‘ginning of recorded
history progress has not been stead}-, but has bc'cn a matter of
fit.', and starts. After the \ge ('f the Pyramids, die first really
lu'tew'orthy advance was in tlie time of iht^ Ci’reeks, and afjer
them there w'as no further advance of comparable' im]>i)riance
until about five hundred yc*arv ago During the last five hundred
years clianges ha\<‘ (uvurrc'd with continually increasing ire-
(juc'ncy, and have at last become vso s\\ift that an old man can
scarcely hope to understand the wendd in Ahic h he finds liimself.
It seems hardly possible that a slate of affairs (littering so
profoundly from e\erything that has existed since first theiv*
were living organisms, can c'onlinue without bringing some
kind of dizziness, some c'alamitous vertigo, that will end the
maddening acicleration in which heart and brain become
iticreasingly exhaust(*d. Sut'h f(*ar.s are not irrational: the state of

Q36

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

the world encourages them, and the contrast between the
hustling present and the leisurely past brings them to the
imagination of the contemplative historian.

But when, forgetting our present perplexities, we view the
world as astronomers view it, we find ourselves thinking of tlie
future as extending through many more ages than even those
contemplated in geology. ThcTc appears to be no reason in
pliysical nature to ])revent our jdanet fiom remaining habitable
for another million million years, and if man can survhe, in
spite of the dangers produced by his own frenzies, there i.s no
reason wliy he should not continue the cai'eer of triumj^h upon
which he has so recently embarked Man's destiny for many
millions of 3Tars to come is, so far as our present knowledge
shows, in his own hands. It rests wutli him to decide whcth(‘r
he will plunge into disaster or climb to undreamt-of heights.
JSliakespeare speaks of

llie prophetic soul

Of tlie wide world dreaming on things to come.

Are we to think that the dream is not prophetic? Is it no more
than a deceiving vision ending in death.^ Or maj we think that
the drama is only just begun, that we have heard the fir^t
syllables of the prologue, and as vet no more r

Man, as the Orpines said, is a child of earth and of the starry
heaven; or, in more recent language, a (ombination of god
and beast. There are those who shut their eyes to the beast,
and lliere ar(‘ those who sliul their eyes to the god. It is all too
eas\ to make a pic ture of man as unmixed beast. Swift did it in
his Yahoos, and did it in a manner .so convincing that to many
of us the imjjress is ineftkceable. But Swift's Yahoos, repulsive
as they are, lack the worst cjualilics of modern man, sinc'e th(»y
lack liis intelligence. To describe man as a mixture of god and
beast is hardl}' fair to the beasts. He must rather be eoiK'cived
as a mixture of god and devil. No beast and no Yalioo could
commit tlic crimes committed by Hiller and Stalin. There seems

236

i\o limit to the horrors that can be inflicted by a combination of
scientific ir»tclligencc with the malevolence of Satan. Wlien v\e
contemplate the tortures of millions deliberately inflicted by
Hitler and Stalin, and when we reflect tliat the species which
they disgraced is our own, it is easy to feel that the Yahoos,
for all their degradation, arc far less dreadful than some of the
liunian beings who actually wield power in great modern
States. Human imagination long ago pictured Hell, hut it is
only through recent skill that men lia\(‘ been able to give
reality to what they had imagined. I'he human mind is strangely
poised between the bright vault of Heaven and the dark j)it of
Hell. It can find satisfaction in the contemplation of either, and
it cannot be said that either is more natural to it than thv oilier.

Sometimes, in moments of horror, 1 have been tempted to
doubt whether there is any rea.srm to vvisli rliat sucli a creature
as man should continiK to exist. It is easy to see man as dark
and cruel, as an embodiment of diabolic pow^r, and as a blot
up(‘n the fair face of tlie uni\erse. But this is not the whole
truth, and is not the last word of wisdom.

Man, as the Orphics said, is also the child of tlie starry
heaven. Man, though liis l)ody is insignificant and powerless in
comparison with the great bodies of the astronomer's w'orld, ivS
yet able to mirror that 'vorld, is able to travel in imagination
afid scientific knowledge through enormous abysses of space
and time. What he knows already of the world in which he
lives, would be unbelievable to his ancestors of a thousand
years ago: and in \itw of the speed with which he is acquiring
knowledge there is every reasc^n to think that, if he continues
on his present course, what he will know a thousand years
from now' will be equally beyond wdiat m - an imagine. But it is
not only, or even principally, in Vn^.wledge that man at his best
deserves admiration. Men have created beauty; they have had
strange visions that seemed like the first glimpse of a land of
wonder: they have been capable of lov'^e, of sympathy for the
whole human race, of \.ist hopes for mankind as a whole. 'Fhese

237

HUMAN SOCIETY IN ETHICS AND POLITICS

achievements, it is true, have been those of exceptional men,
ami liave very frequently met with hostility from the herd. But
there is no reason why, in the ages to come, the sort of man
who is now exceptional should not become usual, and if that
were to happen, tlie exceptional man in that new world would
rise as far above Shakespeare as Shakespeare now rises abo\e
tlie common man. So much evil use has been made of knowledge
that our imagination does not readily ris(‘ to the tliought of
the good uses that are possible in tlie raising of the level ot
excellence in tlie population at large U» that wliich is now only
acliicvcd by men of genius. Wlien I allow myself to hope that
the world \\ill emerge from its present troubles, and that it
will some day learn to give the direction of its aiiairs, not to
cruel mountebanks, but to men possessed of wisdom and
courage, I see before me a shining \isi()n* a world where none
ar<* hungry, where few are ill, w'here work is pleasant and not
excessive, where kindly feeling is ('ommon, and where minds
released from fear create delight for e\e and ear and iTeart. Do
not say this is impossible. It is not impossible. I do not say it
can be clone tomorrow, but I do say that it could lie done
within a thousand years, if men would bend th(‘ir minds to the
achievement of th^ kind of hap]»iness that should be distinctive
of man. I say tlie kind of happiness distincti\(‘ of man, because
the happiness of pigs, which liie enemies of Rjiicurus accused
Jiim of seeking, is not possible for men. If you try to make
yourself content with the happiness of the pig, your suppressed
potentialities will make you miscTable. 'riue happiness for
human beings is jiossiblo only to those who dexelop tlieir
godlike potentialities to the utmost For suc'h men, in the
world of the present day, happiness must be mixed with
mu('h pain, since they (annoi escape sxmpallietic suffering
in the spectacle oi the sufferings of otlieis. But in a stn iely
where this soune of pain no longer existed, there could
be a human hajipiness more (omj)letc, more infused with
imagination and knowledge and s^^mpathy, than anything

PROLOGUi: OR EPILOGUE?

that is possible to those condemned to live in our present
jrloomy epoch.

Is all this hope to count for nothinjrr Are we to continue
<‘ntrusting our affairs to men witliout sympathy, without know-
ledge, without imagination, and having nothing to recommend
them except metliodical hatred and skill in vituperation? (I do
not mean this as an indictment of all statesmen; but it applies
to those wlio guide the destinies of Russia and to some who
luve influence in other countries.) When Othello is about to
kill Desdemona, he says, “But yet the j>ity of it, lago. Oh
lago, the i)ity f)f it." 1 doubt whether Malenkov and liis opj>o-
site number, as they prepare the extermination of mankind,
have enough pity \:i their character to he capable of the- excla-
mation, or even to realize the nature of what they are pre-
paring. 1 suppose that never for a moment have they thought
of man as a singl(‘ sj)ecies with |H>ssibilities tliat ma\^ be realized
or thwarted. Never have their minds risen beyond tlie daily
c onsiderations of momentar} expediency m a narrow^ contest
for brief j)ower. And yet there must, in every country, he many
who can rise to a wider point of view'. It is to men with siiih
ca])al)ilities, in whatever country, that the friends of man mu.'it
appeal. The future of man is at stake, and if enough men
hceoine aware of this hi^* futui*'* is assured. Tlio.se who are to
lead the world flut of its troubles will need courage, liopc and
lo>'c. W'hether they will prevail. I do not know^ but, beyond
^11 reason, 1 am unconc|uerably pcrsiiadeil that they will.

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